Spartak Moscow v Tottenham UEFA Cup preview

After a series of stumbles, Spartak Moscow's hopes for advancing in the UEFA Cup come down to needing a victory against Tottenham at White Hart Lane. Michael Laudrup's Spartak has been far from consistent, enjoying the highs of defeating CSKA Moscow before being win-less in their final three matches of the domestic season in route to a disappointing ninth place finish. After falling 2-1 to NEC Nijmegen at Luzhniki (match review) in their most recent match, the decision was made to make the journey to London to prepare for this "do or die" match.

For the match Myaso will be without key-man Vladimir Bystrov but have Welliton and Clemente Rodriquez. While Tottenham has already qualified, Harry Redknapp is facing a series of injuries problems which have eliminated his striking options down to Fraizer Campbell. The Spurs will miss Vedran Corluka and Roman Pavlyuchenko who are cup-tied plus Darren Bent, Jermaine Jenas, Jonathan Woodgate, Ledley King, Alan Hutton and Giovani dos Santos.

Key players to watch for Spartak is the enterprising trio of Aleksandr Pavlenko,Ivan Saenko, Nikita Bazhenov, while will have Croatian international Luka Modrić back for the match.

I will report on it as it concludes.