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Mauricio Pochettino has finally rewarded Harry Kane's impressive form by naming him in the starting line-up for Tottenham's clash with Stoke City.
The England Under-21 international is Tottenham's top goalscorer in all competitions, and came off the bench last weekend to score the late winner against Aston Villa, with what was his first Premier League goal of his career.
Meanwhile, the Spurs boss has also kept faith with under fire defender Federico Fazio, despite the Argentine picking up his second red card since moving to White Hart Lane in the summer.
Teams in full:
Tottenham Starting XI: Lloris, Naughton, Fazio, Kaboul, Rose; Capoue, Mason; Chadli, Eriksen, Townsend; Kane
Substitutes: Vorm, Dier, Vertonghen, Dembele, Lamela, Adebayor, Soldado
Stoke City Starting XI: Begovic, Bardsley, Shawcross, Wilson, Pieters, Nzonzi, Sidwell, Walters, Bojan, Moses, Diouf.
Substitutes: Muniesa, Ireland,Arnautovic, Adam, Cameron, Crouch, Sorensen.
Speaking after the midweek win in Greece, Kane insisted that Spurs do have the mental strength to succeed.
“I think we’ve got what it takes,” he said. “There is steel in this team. We had a great comeback against Aston Villa in the last game [where Spurs scored twice in the final six minutes] and we dug deep to get the result here.
“We’re doing well in this competition and if we win our next game at home to Partizan Belgrade [on November 27], it will see us through.
“You can develop a steely streak from getting results like this, because they build confidence. We all stuck together against Asteras and we can only build from that.
“When we go into our games, every player knows that everyone else has got his back covered and that we’re going to fight through.
“Asteras caught us on the back foot and the way we started the second half was disappointing but these are the sort of games where you have to hang in and dig deep. We managed to do that and we are very happy.”
