Antonio on the status of World Cup medal-winners Romero, Lloris and Perisic

Antonio Conte has provided an update on the availability of our three medal-winners at the World Cup ahead of our return to action at Brentford on Boxing Day.

Defender Cristian Romero and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris featured on opposite sides of Sunday’s final in Qatar, Cuti’s Argentina defeating Hugo and France on penalties, while versatile left-sider Ivan Perisic won the third place play-off with Croatia 24 hours earlier, getting the better of Morocco.

With our World Cup participants having reported back to the Club at different stages over the last couple of weeks based on their individual schedules, Head Coach Antonio shared the latest on the availability of the trio that went deepest into the tournament on SPURSPLAY after training on Friday.

He revealed that Ivan is back in training, Hugo is expected to be in the squad at Brentford as a substitute and that Cristian isn’t set to feature on Boxing Day at all.

“I like a lot that Ivan Perisic came back today and he had a training session with us and he showed great desire,” Antonio said.

“Then about Hugo, he is coming with us to stay on the bench.

“Cuti (Romero) will be available I hope for the next game against Aston Villa.

“For sure we must be proud for our players, for the players that played at the World Cup, because Cuti, Hugo and Ivan, they won gold, silver and bronze medals. This was really important and they make us, the club, really proud about it.”