Tottenham travel to Craven Cottage on Sunday to take on a Fulham side in indifferent form for the away teams’ third London derby of the season.
Both sides suffered contrasting results on their mid-week Europa League fixtures and Fulham will be looking to take the confidence from the 4-1 win over Wisla Krakow into the fixture.
Spurs, on the other hand, fell to a 1-0 defeat away at Russian side Rubin Kazan but with the first team rested for the game, 11 changes are expected to be made for the short trip across London.
Harry Redknapp has been forced to rest for a further two weeks following his successful heart surgery so first-team duties will again be handled by Kevin Bond and Joe Jordan.
And the duo will have William Gallas available again after the Frenchman came through 72 minutes of the aforementioned 1-0 loss to Rubin Kazan unscathed following his return from a calf problem.
Luka Modric and Roman Paclyuchenko are also expected to shake off respective groin and back problems and should be fit for selection.
However, Michael Dawson (achilles), Tom Huddlestone (ankle), Niko Kranjcar (thigh), Giovani Dos Santos (calf), Danny Rose (ankle) and Vedran Corluka (foot) will all certainly sit out the encounter.
Potential starting XI:
Friedel; Walker, Kaboul, King, Assou-Ekotto; Lennon, Parker, Modric, Bale; Van der Vaart, Adebayor.
Last time out
A 4-0 loss in the forurth round of the FA Cup condemned Spurs to a miserable away-day at Craven Cottage. Two penalities from former Spur Danny Murphy in the first 15 minutes, after fouls from Alan Hutton and Michael Dawson, the latter receiving his marching orders as a result, before Brede Hangeland and Moussa Dembele wrapped up the win in the first 45 minutes.
Spurs will also be hoping to pick up only their second league win over Fulham since 2002, the most recent win coming last season as goals from Roman Pavlyuchenko and Tom Huddlestone cancelled out Diomansy Kamara’s opener.
Key Battles
Emmanuel Adebayor will likely cause Brede Hangeland a few problems in the Fulham defence and despite not scoring since the 4-0 win over Liverpool, his movement, pace and power will likely be a handful for the Norwegian on Sunday.
In the middle, the veterans will come up against each other as Scott Parker and Danny Murphy look to control the game for their respective sides. Parker will have to be on his days in order to stifle the Fulham captain’s creative influence from the midfield.
Bobby Zamora is the likely candidate to lead the Fulham front-line but will come up against the in-form Younes Kaboul in the Spurs back four. The Frenchman has played every Premier League game for the North London side this season and is in a rich vein of form alongside captain Ledley King in the defence.
