Royal, Sessegnon start: Confirmed Tottenham Hotspur starting XI to face Newcastle United

Spurs News: Confirmed Tottenham Hotspur starting XI to face Newcastle United in the Premier League

Tottenham Hotspur come into the game against Newcastle United after a horrific showing against Manchester United at Old Trafford earlier this week.

The Lilywhites were without Dejan Kulusevski and Richarlison for that game, while Lucas Moura was only fit to make the bench. The Swede and the Brazilian were obvious doubts coming into the game considering they were entirely left out of our last matchday squad.

Manager Antonio Conte has now confirmed his starting XI for the game against the Magpies. And as expected, the Lilywhites are without Deki and Richy in the starting XI or the bench.

The complete starting XI can be seen in the tweet from the official Spurs account below:

Spurs played a 3-5-2 formation against the Red Devils with Yves Bissouma as the extra midfielder. Conte has shown that he has this formation to fall back upon if he doesn’t have three fit senior attackers.

Bryan Gil exists, of course, but the Spaniard has rarely been trusted ever since he joined us from Sevilla last year. From the looks of the team, it seems like the formation will be repeated again.

Emerson Royal is back from his three-game red-card suspension to start down the right-hand side instead of Matt Doherty. Ivan Perisic has surprisingly been benched.

Spurs are still just three points behind Manchester City after 11 games. The gap is seven with Arsenal if they beat Southampton today, but one expects – and in our case, hope – for them to slow down as the season progresses.

Hence, not all is lost after the loss to United. It was a small hurdle in our path – one that isn’t all that surprising whenever we play a big six team. This season is about transition it seems and the best we can manage while transforming into a world-class football team.

More Tottenham Hotspur News

• Transfer News: Tottenham Hotspur targetting Juventus midfielder Manuel Locatelli to appease Antonio Conte
• David Ornstein gives update on Antonio Conte’s contract situation at Tottenham Hotspur
• Alan Hutton backs Tottenham Hotspur to win the race for James Maddison

A win against the Toons is expected. Nothing less will please our fans or management. They are currently sixth with 18 points and are in good form but we cannot drop points to teams outside the big six if we aim to fight for top-four or even for the title.