Tottenham vs Rubin Kazan preview

The third Europa League encounter of the campaign sees the joint group leaders come up against each other at White Hart Lane on Thursday night.

Both sides have picked up wins over Shamrock Rovers and a draw a piece over Greek outfit PAOK after two games.

The main headache facing Harry Redknapp tonight is the current defensive crisis crippling Spurs at the moment.

Michael Dawson (achilles), William Gallas (calf), Ledley King (groin) and Vedran Corluka (foot) are all sidelined leaving Sebastien Bassong and Younes Kaboul as the only two fit centre-backs for the fixture.

"We lost William Gallas before the start of the season, Michael Dawson and now Ledley at the weekend. Vedran Corluka is injured as well," Redknapp said on the defence

"The problem is that no-one is coming back in time for Sunday, so if we get a knock on Thursday, we'll be in trouble. It's a difficult one."

Better news, however, sees Sandro, Aaron Lennon and Danny Rose return in time for the Europa League tie and all three are expected to start the match.

"Danny is fit and he's fine now. We've players like him, Aaron Lennon is fit and if he can get through tomorrow he could feature on Sunday for us. Sandro could also be fit," he added. 

"Forward-wise we're fine, Pav's fit, Giovani, it's just defensively where we have a problem."

Potential starting XI:

Cudicini; Walker, Bassong, Kaboul, Rose; Lennon, Sandro, Carroll, Townsend; Dos Santos, Pavlyuchenko