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Tottenham Hotspur welcome West Ham to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in a cross-London derby Quarter-Final of 2021-22 Carabao Cup.
Victory would see Spurs reach the semi-finals for the third time in four seasons, whereas West Ham are looking to reach the last four for the first time in eight seasons.
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Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg is a doubt for Tottenham after a leg injury forced him to miss Sunday’s Premier League draw against Liverpool, as Spurs returned to action following a two week break due to a Coronavirus outbreak amongst players and staff.
Bryan Gil, Dane Scarlett (both Coronavirus), Ryan Sessegnon (muscle) and Cristian Romero (thigh) are absent.
West Ham could welcome Aaron Cresswell back into contention after the left-back missed their last five matches in all competitions with a back injury.
Ben Johnson (hamstring) is a doubt but Kurt Zouma (hamstring), Ryan Fredericks (groin), Vladimir Coufal (suspension) and Angelo Ogbonna (knee) are ruled out.
Stat Attack
- Tottenham have won four of ten previous League Cup meetings against West Ham (W4, D2, L4).
- West Ham are unbeaten in three of five away League Cup ties against Spurs (W2, D1, L2).
- Both teams have won one of three meetings at Spurs’ modern Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, whilst their most recent clash at the venue finished 3-3 in October 2020.
- Spurs have collected two bookings in this season’s competition with yellow cards for Tanguy Ndombele and Son Heung-min coming after half-time against Wolves and Burnley respectively.
- West Ham are yet to concede in their two Carabao Cup matches this season.
Prediction
After having had two weeks off, Tottenham definitely didn’t look rusty in Sunday’s draw against Liverpool because they looked solid defensively, whilst also executing quick movement counter-attacks and applying pressure on and off the ball.
West Ham meanwhile had the weekend off thanks to squad issues at Norwich so will definitely come into this game fresh, especially after their packed season so far but they do need to rediscover their goalscoring spark and sort out their recent scrappy defending.
Now if the Hammers do improve defensively then I can see a tough match here, although I am intrigued as to how Antonio Conte will approach this match selection wise given the inconsistency of Spurs’ fringe players and a congested festive fixture schedule.
On that note, this feels like a difficult game to call especially with some Spurs players possibly still feeling the after-effects of Coronavirus, so I am going for a score draw with West Ham to again cause a cupset on penalties.
Prediction: Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 West Ham
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