AVB: Spurs face ‘impossible’ task

Andre Villas-Boas believes his Tottenham side face an impossible task against Aston Villa in the Capital One Cup, and that they have not been given a fair crack at the competition due to fixture congestion.

Spurs travel to Villa Park tonight (kick-off 7.45pm) for the third-round clash, barely 48 hours after their 1-0 Premier League win at Cardiff.

The game takes place tonight due to Birmingham and West Brom being at home to Swansea and Arsenal respectively tomorrow, and concerns over the potential impact on crowd safety due to policing demands.

Villas-Boas understands the reasoning, but it has done little to improve his mood.

“This is an impossible game for us to play, but hopefully our team spirit and motivation can get us through,” he said.

“It (the Capital One Cup) is not our absolute number one priority but I don’t think we have been given a fair chance to play in this competition this year.

“It could be possible for the players who played against Cardiff to play this game, but I am not sure I want to risk the players who played getting a hamstring injury which could take them six weeks to recover from when the Premier League is more important.

“This team has not experienced having to play again after just two days and we have not been given the same chance as the other teams. So we will have to rotate our squad as the players who played in Cardiff will not be involved.”

Villas-Boas’ opposite number, Paul Lambert, is already prioritising the Premier League.

Villa play Manchester City at the weekend and Lambert, who will be without the injured Christian Benteke tonight, said: “We’ve played really hard teams in this opening spell — three teams you think will be round about there in Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, and now we’ve got two more tough ones.

“The main one is Saturday but we’ll do our best to get through the Tottenham tie.”