Tottenham Hotspur Match Preview
West Ham United haven’t had the easiest of runs in the Carabao Cup this season but after beating Manchester United, as well as knocking current holders Manchester City out on penalties after a goalless draw, the Hammers were handed a third all Premier League tie at the quarter-final stage. They face their London rivals for the second time this season tonight at The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
After Saturday’s home game with newly-promoted Norwich City was postponed, the Irons have had exactly one week to prepare after their 2-0 London derby defeat at Arsenal.
Spurs played their first game since 5 December three days ago when they notched up a somewhat unexpected 2-2 draw with Liverpool, so you would think that the visitors would be the fresher of the two sides.
This will be the third time that West Ham have recently faced Spurs under new management, as former Chelsea boss Antonio Conte is now in the hotseat after replacing Nuno Espírito Santo as Head-Coach in November.
It would be fair to say that when these two sides have met in this competition here in recent times, West Ham have had the best of the encounters. When the North London side were playing at Wembley, due to the delay in building their new stadium, it was a memorable night for the travelling contingent, as the East Londoners came from being two goals down at half-time to win 3-2 in 2017.
Prior to that, they were also victorious at White Hart Lane in December 2013 after producing an even later comeback to cement their place in the fifth round. They will be desperate to produce another winning performance here.
Vladimír Coufal is suspended for this game, having been sent off against the Gunners for two bookable offences last time out, meaning David Moyes is likely to rotate his squad once again with Alphonse Areola, Ajibola Alese, Mark Noble, Alex Král, Andriy Yarmolenko and Nikola Vlašić all options to make the starting line-up.
Saïd Benrahma was on the bench for the defeat at The Emirates Stadium but could be back in contention for a starting place here.
The match is a 7:45pm kick-off with live coverage being screened by Sky Sports from 7pm. The referee is Christopher Kavanagh.