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Team news is out ahead of Sunday’s match against Watford at Vicarage Road, and the biggest news is that Tottenham Hotspur will be without its captain and starting keeper. Hugo Lloris will miss the match on Sunday with a “thigh injury.”
Headline Spurs injury news - Hugo Lloris (thigh) and Moussa Sissoko (hamstring) both out of the weekend's match. Juan Foyth (thigh) - late stages of rehab. Erik Lamela (hamstring) - will be assessed. Victor Wanyama (knee) - back in full training.
— Alasdair Gold (@AlasdairGold) August 31, 2018
Now, I don’t have any reason to doubt that Hugo didn’t actually pick up a minor injury in training, only that it seems somewhat suspicious that he misses the first seemingly non-critical match after his arrest for drink driving last week. If you’re a conspiracy theorist, you’re probably very much inside your mind palace right now.
Moussa Sissoko and Juan Foyth will both also miss the match, and Erik Lamela is being assessed after picking up an injury in the warm-ups before the Manchester United match. But the other piece of big news is confirmation that Victor Wanyama has returned to full training with the club. That’s huge. Big Vic may not start the match — Pochettino tends to ease his players not named “Harry Kane” back into the side — but having another defensive midfield option to spell Eric Dier is a very good thing. Hopefully Vic starts on the bench.
In his press conference, Pochettino stressed the importance of not letting up against an opponent like Watford, which is off to a fast start with 9 points from three matches.
#thfc Pochettino on Watford: “If we’re not ready and we believe because we beat Man Utd 3-0 all is fantastic, we're going to crash. After a historic win, it’s easy to say our performance was fantastic.... But if you watch the game the line was thin, between positive & negative.”
— Ben Pearce (@BenPearceSpurs) August 31, 2018
As far as Watford goes, Tom Cleverly and former Spurs cabal ringleader Younes Kaboul will both miss the match, as will Gerard Deulofeu. Miguel Britos is questionable.