Bale out but AVB sure Spurs can complete Inter mission

Andre Villas-Boas has no plans to rest his best players tonight, as Tottenham look to complete their demolition of Inter Milan without the services of Gareth Bale (6pm, live on Setanta Ireland and ITV4) at the San Siro.

Spurs have one foot in the quarter-finals of the Europa League after Bale inspired the team to a 3-0 victory in the first leg of their last 16 tie last week. Despite the drubbing, Inter are expected to rest a number of their top players as their priority is to qualify for the Champions League via Serie A, where they currently sit in joint fifth position after a disappointing loss against Bologna at the weekend.

Although Tottenham lost ground in their own hunt for Champions League qualification on Sunday when they lost to Liverpool, Villas-Boas is determined to land the Europa League trophy and will therefore resist temptation to rest the likes of Aaron Lennon, Mousa Dembele and Jermain Defoe.

“No chance,” the Tottenham manager said when asked if was considering fielding a weakened team. “We will play a strong team to make sure we go through in this competition.

“We take this game very seriously.”

Bale is suspended tonight but Villas-Boas is confident Spurs will be fine without their talisman.

“We’ve been in situation where he is not with us and we got results,” the 35-year-old said.

“Gareth can make a difference in any game, we know. We will miss him but we won’t want to prove anything without him because we believe a lot in ourselves and also we believe in Gareth. It’s not a case of proving anything. We just want to do our job to get through.”

Aaron Lennon and Emmanuel Adebayor could feature tonight after recovering from hamstring and knee injuries respectively.