Soccer

Tottenham face uphill battle against Basel with Bale, Lennon and Gallas out

But Steffen Freund is confident of getting the away result

Valentin Stocker of Basel scores the opening goal of the first leg at White Hart Lane. Photograph: John Walton/PA Wire
Valentin Stocker of Basel scores the opening goal of the first leg at White Hart Lane. Photograph: John Walton/PA Wire
Thu Apr 11 2013 - 07:00

Tottenham will be without the injured trio of Gareth Bale, Aaron Lennon and William Gallas tonight. However, assistant coach Steffen Freund thinks his team can cope without them.

“We’re playing a strong team . . . but we are confident because we’ve played so well away all season,” he said. “If we perform how we know we can, we have a good chance of progressing to the semi-finals.

“We’ve played 11 matches in this competition and we’ve been strong throughout. Okay, Inter Milan was difficult, but we managed to come back at Lyon in the last minute. Now it’s the same against Basel.”

Basel, the only domestic champions among the eight quarter-finalists, will be playing their 18th European match of the season, a marathon which started against Flora in Estonia on July 17th.

READ MORE

Lennon (knee), Gallas (calf), and Jermain Defoe (pelvis) have not travelled with the squad but Tottenham expect all three, and midfielder Bale, to be back for the game against Manchester City a week on Sunday.

Midfielder Sandro is out for the rest of the season with a knee injury, while centre-back Younes Kaboul (also knee) is around 10 to 15 days away from full fitness.