Stoke miss four of their goalkeepers ahead of Tottenham clash

manager,

Michael O’Neill

, will be facing a great challenge against their

Carabao Cup

opponent,

, after having to choose a goalkeeper out of their two remaining options, who are either unexperienced or haven’t played for a whole two years period.

After losing three of their goalkeepers to injury and one being cup-tied, O’Neill will have the 19-year-old

and 37-year-old

Andy Lonergan

as his sole options. Among the injured goalkeepers are

,

, and Niki Maenpaa while

, who joined the team on a loan, will be busy with his cup pursuit.

O’Neill said:

“We’ve had a difficult situation in goal. We’ve got four senior goalkeepers out now if you include Joe Bursik.”

“Our choice in goal is either young Blondy Nna Noukeu, a young Belgian goalkeeper, or Andy Lonergan, who we signed as cover for Joe as well. It will be either Andy or Blondy that will play.”

Noukeu has an impressive run with his Cameroon under-23s team and Lonergan, who haven’t been featured in a long time while also suffering from a mild illness, are ready to cover for their teammates if it was necessary.

“Andy is fine, he’s trained the last couple of days,”

said O’Neill

. “Blondy has been around the first team now for the best part of nine months and he’s done very well.”

“He’s been on the bench on a number of occasions, so if he’s asked to play it’s a great opportunity for him.”

Other players, who won’t attend their Wednesday clash, are

,

, and

, but O’Neill hopes these events won’t affect the team’s high-spirit.

“That’s the message we have to hammer home to the players,”

said O’Neill.

“We did very well, particularly (against) Villa when we played extremely well.”

“It will be a tough test but a game when we’ve everything to gain and that’s how we’ll approach it.”

“Whatever team they put out, given the quality in their squad and depth of their squad, it’s going to present a huge challenge to us but we can’t focus too much on that.”

“Our focus has to be on our game and making life difficult for them, making it an uncomfortable night for them.”

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