Champions League hopefuls Tottenham Hotspur travel to relegation-threatened Queens Park Rangers in this weekend's only Premier League game.
This is the fixture rearranged following Spurs' progress to last Sunday's League Cup final, but it was Chelsea who lifted the trophy with a 2-0 win at Wembley.
Mauricio Pochettino's side have already bounced back from that disappointment by beating Swansea City 3-2 on Wednesday to end a five-match winless run in all competitions.
The hosts had to hold on at White Hart Lane as former midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson scored a late reply to set up a dramatic finish in which goalkeeper Hugo Lloris denied Federico Fernandez with a match-winning save in stoppage time.
The result ensured that Spurs, six points adrift, did not lose further ground in the race for Champions League qualification, with Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Southampton all also winning in midweek.
Their game in hand on Saturday - their top-four rivals are either inactive or on FA Cup duty - gives Pochettino and his players the chance to cut the gap on fourth to three points and remind everybody that they are still in the mix.
Rangers need the points for an entirely different reason, having dropped into the relegation zone over the course of the midweek games due to their 2-1 defeat to Arsenal and Aston Villa's last-gasp victory over West Bromwich Albion.
Interim manager Chris Ramsey, whose only win in charge of the Hoops remains their 2-0 triumph away at Sunderland, spent 10 years on the staff at Spurs, firstly as head of player development and then as a first-team coach.
He departed in the summer, along with Tim Sherwood and QPR director of football Les Ferdinand, and now Pochettino is benefitting from the work that he did nurturing the likes of Harry Kane, Ryan Mason and Andros Townsend.
Mason scored his first Premier League goal in Tottenham's win over the Swans, while Townsend added his first in open play since October 2013. Both are expected to line up against their former mentor at Loftus Road.
Pochettino has no injury worries ahead of the London derby, but his side have played three high-intensity and high-pressure games in the space of six days and so he could use his healthy resources to freshen up his starting XI.
Nabil Bentaleb, Nacer Chadli and Christian Eriksen have all been on triple duty and the Spurs manager must weigh up whether he can risk resting them. Paulinho, Mousa Dembele and Erik Lamela are his alternative options.
Ramsey does not have such luxuries and saw his absentee list grow as Nedum Onuoha limped off against the Gunners. Leroy Fer, Adel Taarabt, Alejandro Faurlin and Richard Dunne are also out and Joey Barton is suspended.
Sandro, who left Spurs to sign for QPR in the summer, gave his side a much-needed fitness boost in midfield by returning on Wednesday, but is unlikely to be risked again so soon after coming back from a three-month layoff.
That could mean a recall for another former Spurs star, Niko Kranjcar, in midfield. Clint Hill and Mauricio Isla could also be called upon as Rangers seek a sixth home win of the season which would see them and Villa trade places again.
One-goal Tottenham flop Bobby Zamora and Charlie Austin, who with 15 goals to his name is the only Englishman in the Premier League to outscore Tottenham's Kane this season, will continue up front for the Hoops.
QPR:
Form in Premier League: LLLWLL
Possible starting lineup: Green; Yun, Caulker, Hill, Furlong; Isla, Henry, Kranjcar, Phillips; Zamora, Austin
Spurs:
Form in Premier League: WWWLDW
Form in all competitions: LDDLLW
Possible starting lineup: Lloris; Walker, Dier, Vertonghen, Rose; Mason, Paulinho; Lamela, Dembele, Townsend; Kane
Sports Mole says: 1-1
No Data Analysis info
