COVID-19 cases have forced the postponement of Spurs’ last two fixtures in the Premier League - Brighton away last week, Leicester away on Thursday night.
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Spurs manager Antonio Conte is relishing the prospect of facing the high-flying Liverpool, as the team prepare for their first match in a fortnight at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday. COVID-19 cases have forced the postponement of Spurs’ last two fixtures in the Premier League – Brighton away last week, Leicester away on Thursday night. They will now face a Liverpool side riding high on confidence, including a 3-1 victory over Newcastle at Anfield on the same night Tottenham’s match was called off at Leicester. Liverpool are sitting second in the Premier League table, having collected 40 points from 17 matches. On the other hand, Tottenham Hotspur are seventh with 25 points from 14 matches.
“We are coming over a period of two weeks where we’ve not played, so at this moment to play against a strong team could be a good thing for us,” said Conte, as per their club’s website. “These types of game give you excitement, give you more fire. For sure, we will face difficulty and we have to be prepared to suffer during the game. We have to know this. We have to know, also, when we have the ball, we can hurt everybody.
“Liverpool are strong, always. I think Jurgen made a fantastic job with Liverpool. He needed a bit of time, but the club understood Jurgen was the right person and he has created a strong, strong team. It’s amazing to watch them, the intensity, the passion, for all the work they show during the game.”
Conte then answered about what is the best way to tackle Liverpool. Is it whether to sit back and soak up the pressure or fight fire with fire against the league’s top goalscorers (48 in 17 games)?
“The best is to find a mixed solution,” replied Conte. “Sometimes, they like it when the opponent press them, because they find the space, and their players in space are very strong. Mo Salah is one of these players. At the same time, you have to have a plan to play against them if you want to have, in your heart, enough to win the game.
“We’ve been preparing for the game in the right way, we are ready to play, and we know we’re facing one of the best teams now in Europe, maybe the world. At the same time, we want to play this game and to see where we are.”
With the race for the top spot getting intensified, Premier League, however, is facing a bit of Covid-19 crisis. As a result of which some matches have been postponed lately. Liverpool’s Sunday opponents Tottenham Hotspur were in the middle of such concerns recently. Undoubtedly, Jurgen Klopp was asked a number of questions in relation to the recent crisis during his pre-match press conference on Friday.
On Sunday’s game going ahead and ‘any concerns over the integrity of the competition’ with some fixtures being postponed, Klopp, as per their club’s website, replied, “I don’t know. We have now in the moment games to play and Thursday-Sunday is a tough rhythm. We have no information about Tottenham, I don’t know anything about [it]. I have no idea if they train since today, from tomorrow or since a week.”
“I have really no idea. It’s difficult to get any kind of information which is part of a preparation for a game. Integrity of the game? I don’t know when these games will all be played. Where is the space for them to be played? I don’t know all these kinds of things. We don’t think we shouldn’t play on Sunday, honestly. But I say that now. If in two hours when the players arrive here and we have six, seven, eight more cases then of course we cannot play. But in a situation like we are now, we can play and we would like to play. That’s it, pretty much.”
