Mousa Dembele returns to Tottenham training ahead of League Cup tie

Tomorrow, Tottenham Hotspur are back in action in a midweek League Cup tie against West Ham United. The match will take place at Wembley Stadium, and Spurs released their usual injury report ahead of the game. Victor Wanyama continues to rehabilitate from a knee injury, but Mousa Dembele has reportedly rejoined training.

But... wait a second. Something’s different here. There’s a name missing from that injury list. But who? If only I could put my finger on it...

Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

That’s right. For the first time in a full calendar year, Erik Lamela’s name is not on a Tottenham Hotspur injury report. I don’t know if he’ll feature at all tomorrow against West Ham in the League-Cup-Sponsored-By-Carabao, but wouldn’t it be neat if he made the bench? Wouldn’t it be even neater if he got some minutes? And wouldn’t it be neater-er if he actually started, scored a hat trick (all of them rabonas) and celebrated them by holding up a copy of the day’s Guardian paper?

We’re not sure how Mauricio Pochettino will set up his squad for tomorrow’s match. Harry Kane will likely be rested, but knowing Poch it won’t just be a team full of academy grads and deep bench players. Expect a couple of players in the starting XI, but it wouldn’t at all surprise us to see players like Juan Foyth, Kyle Walker-Peters, and Georges-Kevin N’Koudou get a run-out against the Hammers.