MATT DOHERTY WILL miss Tottenham’s Europa Conference League tie with Vitesse Arnhem tomorrow evening through injury, a game for which manager Nuno is omitting his 10 starting players from last weekend’s league win over Newcastle. 

Doherty was substituted at half-time of Ireland’s friendly win against Qatar last week, having received treatment earlier in the half. The Spurs manager says Doherty is “improving”, but tomorrow’s European tie comes too quickly for him. 

Asked if it was a risk to leave so many front-line players behind, meanwhile, Nuno said: “No. It’s not about that. If someone gets that interpretation, I cannot do anything.

“And when you decide to think about the risk, if you always think about the risk, you cannot decide. Decisions in life, all of them have risk.

“So it’s about trying to analyse and see what is better for us in terms of our process during the week and for the future.

“Next week we are going to have another game midweek. So we have to measure all these things. But what you are trying to say, if you allow me, is not right.

“We respect all the competitions, we respect all the games. And we consider that it’s better for us to start the players that are going to start, leave some players here, work, recover well, so we can be able to compete better on the Sunday, and then we have Wednesday, and over and over again.

“But I repeat myself with the way I started, if you think about risk, you’ll not decide.”

One of those players who will be starting is Steven Bergwijn, who has returned from a six-game injury absence.

With reporting by Gavin Cooney