Udogie, Bissouma out vs. City, with Rodri and Foden “ready”

There’s probably never a good time to play Manchester City (even when your team is City’s bugaboo and you beat them 4-0 last season at the Etihad), so who’s to say whether Tottenham Hotspur heading to Manchester in week 2 is good or bad? Probably neither.

The difference is that Tottenham have a new manager and a couple of new players this time, and maybe that changes the dynamic? Or maybe not. Maybe we stomp them again anyway in the most hilarious fashion because that’s just what we do, you know?

Anyway, Thomas Frank is currently in front of the media giving his press conference ahead of tomorrow’s early match, and the injury news, besides the obvious players, is that both Destiny Udogie and Yves Bissouma are set to miss the match.

“Destiny is better and trained with the team twice, full training, just too short to be involved against City. We want him to train tomorrow and get another week. Bissouma is also out. Kulusevski is out for some time and I don’t want to put a time frame on it.”

Predictably, Frank was also asked about transfers, especially in the wake of Wednesday’s gazumping of Eberechi Eze by Arsenal. Frank wisely didn’t talk about any specific deals or players, but he did give a very particular answer that isn’t difficult at all to view as a “subtweet.”

“I don’t speak about specific players unless they are at our fantastic club. There have been a lot of rumors including players linked when I think that’s interesting because there’s nothing in it. There have been a lot of links and lot of links in the future.

“In general, talking generally, I don’t want any players that don’t want to come to this club and wear this fantastic badge. We don’t want them here and I’m sure the fans feel the same.”

That’s right, Tommy. This might be the expected copium from a fanbase that felt wounded and humiliated by being gazumped for a good player by its biggest rival, but it’s also the correct answer. If you’re the manager of Tottenham Hotspur, you want all of your players to actually WANT to be there. Eze clearly did not, so, in effect, screw that guy.

Frank did, however, say he expected new players to come to Spurs before the close of the transfer window.

“Of course we need to do everything we can. We have six good front players that is very competitive. Kulusevski will come back this season, probably longer term with Maddison, I am also confident we will sign a player before the end of the window.”

On the flip side, Pep Guardiola said in his presser that midfielders Rodri and Phil Foden are available for selection for City against Tottenham, which is extremely [swallows hard], but that Savinho will not feature for City as he continues to recover from an acute bout of Wants-To-Go-To-Spursitis.

“Rodri and Phil, last game they were out, but for just the reason why was lack of training and rhythym. They were not ready for 90 minutes against Wolves but they are ready for tomorrow. Kovacic, Josko and Savio are the ones who are out.”

Tottenham kick off against Manchester City tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 7:30 a.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. BST. The match is televised on USA Network in the colonies and TNT Sports 1 in the UK.