Latest Tottenham news as Ange Postecoglou is hit with yet another Spurs blow after Yves Bissouma picked up his fifth yellow card of the season

As Ange Postecoglou welcomes back Destiny Udogie from suspension to face Aston Villa, another key player is set to miss the game. Both Udogie and Cristian Romero picked up red cards in the 4-1 London derby defeat to Chelsea with James Maddison and Micky van de Ven picking up injuries and now Yves Bissouma has picked up his fifth yellow card in the Premier League this season.

Towards the final seconds of the first period, Bissouma went in hard on Mario Lemina and was thus shown a yellow card, now meaning he will not feature for Spurs against Aston Villa later this month. Hojbjerg did an admirable job filling in for Bissouma for the London derby at Selhurst Park, however his absence could see a start for Rodrigo Bentancur.

With the Denmark international already in the starting XI, in the absence of James Maddison, a new midfielder will have to come in. Bentancur has missed the last nine months before returning in that game against Crystal Palace, with a number of substitute cameos following with Postecoglou not appearing too keen to start him just yet.

“Look, it is not just Gio, it is Bryan Gil, we’ve got to be careful with Bentancur a bit, it is for him, it’s for Skippy, for Eric Dier, for all these guys,” he admitted when discussing who will replace an important quarter. “That is why they have been training hard. They have been training with us, they haven’t been separate from the group.

“Everything we’ve done, we’ve done together. They’ve worked hard and for all of them it is about being prepared for when the opportunity comes. Fair to say the opportunity comes now for a few of them. It’s up to them now to take that opportunity, but they’ve been preparing themselves for that since the first day.”