Tottenham must start Lucas Moura up top against Chelsea

If Tottenham are going to survive the second leg of their EFL Cup Tie at Chelsea they will need to start Lucas Moura over Fernando Llorente.

Tottenham will head to Stamford Bridge on Thursday with every intention of going toe to toe with Chelsea. Spurs will, of course, be forced to defend their slender one goal advantage without the services of Harry Kane. That leaves Mauricio Pochettino with a perplexing tactical decision to make against the Blues.

The easy thing to do would be to stick Fernando Llorente up top once again. The problem is that the Spanish veteran had an utterly disastrous performance at Fulham on Sunday. He did show the ability to score from a set piece, but he only managed to do so in his own goal.

Otherwise he just seemed to amble about the pitch in desperate hopes of finding a ball to head in a useful direction. It’s possible he was simply shell-shocked after giving the Whites the lead via his own goal. On the other hand, you’d expect a World Cup winner to possess the mental toughness to shake off an error so early in the match.

Trusting Llorente to lead the line again would be the very definition of insanity. Pochettino would be repeating his tactics against Fulham while hoping for drastically different results. It’s not impossible that Llorente could put in a solid shift at Chelsea, but it is quite unlikely. That’s why the Argentine gaffer must shift his tactics into a very different direction.

Fortunately for Pochettino, he has one more able-bodied attacker at his disposal this week. Lucas Moura was “nearly 100%” ahead of the Fulham match, but the club’s medical staff wisely chose to keep him out of action to help him regain full fitness. Presumably he’ll be pretty close to tip-top shape when the Chelsea match rolls around.

If he is, the pacy Brazilian must be the man deployed at the top of Tottenham’s formation. He isn’t a true No. 9, but he has the ability to excel as a false nine against Chelsea’s defence. Perhaps more importantly, he has the quickness and work rate required to press the Blues when they try to play out of the back. That should be essential to Pochettino’s tactics on Thursday.

In truth, he doesn’t need to look any further than the reverse fixture to see how well that strategy can work. Spurs stung Chelsea with an early goal, but it’s fair to say Tottenham were battered during the second half by the Blues’ ability to press. Chelsea did not play a classic centre forward in the match. Instead, Eden Hazard was charged with buzzing around Tottenham’s back line. No one is saying Lucas is Hazard’s equal as a player, but he can play the same role or one match.

Tottenham are not doomed if Llorente gets another chance at Chelsea, but the opening moments of the match will be absolutely critical to Spurs’ success. The smart move would be to forego the gangly Spaniard for the speedy Brazilian. Lucas deserves his chance to shine at Stamford Bridge.