View: Brennan Johnson to make debut as Dejan Kulusevski misses out – predicted XI for Tottenham vs Sheffield United
After a two-week international break, Tottenham will return to Premier League action when they host Sheffield United at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday 16 September.
It has felt like a long two weeks since Ange Postecoglou’s side travelled to Lancashire and put five past Burnley at Turf Moor.
After such a bright start to the season, which has seen both the 58-year-old and his number 10 James Maddison pick up manager and player of the month awards, Spurs supporters would have been dreading the international break.
Not only did they not get to watch more of the Australian’s free-flowing and eye-catching football, they had to keep their fingers crossed as their stars jetted around the globe to represent their nations.
Postecoglou already has a thin enough squad as it is and the club could not afford to pick up any injuries, as even one or two absentees would really threaten to derail their early season momentum. Thankfully, this was not the case, and everyone returned from their duties unscathed.
With that in mind, Tottenham News has taken a look ahead to the Premier League clash and predicted the players that will take to the field and look to get past the Blades.
Guglielmo Vicario had very little to do while away with Italy as he was named on the bench for both of his nation’s 2024 UEFA European Championship qualifying fixtures and saw no game time as a substitute. As a result, the 26-year-old will be raring to get going once again and will no doubt be the shot-stopper picked on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Destiny Udogie was recalled from Italy’s Under-21s squad to recover from an illness but will have recovered and be ready to line up at left-back, alongside Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero, with the latter enjoying a particularly positive time while away with Argentina.
Romero put in two colossal performances, keeping back-to-back clean sheets during his country’s consecutive 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying victories. Across the two matches, he made eight tackles and three interceptions, as well as recording passing accuracies of 99 and 82 per cent (SofaScore).
Pedro Porro will likely be given the nod at right-back after his impressive assist for Son Heung-min’s third goal against Vincent Kompany’s men in the club’s previous outing.
Meanwhile, Yves Bissouma got a wonderful assist while away on international duty with Mali, during their 4-0 victory over South Sudan on Friday 8 September.
As seen in the image above, he found himself on the byline and cut the ball back, taking both the defender and goalkeeper out of the game.
He then produced a wonderful bit of skill to get past the shot-stopper and square the ball for a teammate to tap home.
This would have left him full of confidence, and he will no doubt be back in the fold alongside both Pape Matar Sarr and James Maddison, who, as mentioned above, was named August’s Premier League Player of the Month after a dream start to his Tottenham career.
He has already scored twice on the road while providing two assists and has played ten key passes which have led to the creation of two big chances across his four league appearances. In addition to this, he has racked up an XG total of 1.61 while also having an expected assists total of 1.82 (SofaScore).
Across the front three, Dejan Kulusevski will likely make way for Brennan Johnson. The Swede hasn’t been in the finest form so far this season, scoring just once in four Premier League appearances, and although he grabbed two assists and a goal during the international break, Postecoglou might be tempted to see what his new option at right wing is capable of.
It would be impossible to drop Son from the number nine role after his hattrick against Burnley, and as a result, Manor Solomon will likely be the player who fills in on the left to accommodate for the South Korea international’s positional change.
This pairing worked a treat last time out, as Solomon laid on two assists for his captain, and therefore, Postecoglou is unlikely to change this.
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