Spurs landed in Greece on Wednesday afternoon ahead of their first Group A match against PAOK Salonika. The Tottenham boss has left 10 of the XI who started Saturday's 2-0 win at Wolves at home in order to rest ahead of this weekend's crunch league game against rivals Liverpool. That means the likes of Andros Townsend, Jake Livermore, Giovani dos Santos and Yago Falque will start amid what is expected to be a white-hot atmosphere generated by PAOK's notorious fans at the Toumba Stadium. Redknapp has always made it clear he prioritises the league over Europe and recently described Thursday night's game as a "nuisance". But he insists that he is not disrespecting the competition, pointing to Spurs' mounting injury list, and the importance of Sunday's game, as the reason why he has left stars such as Gareth Bale, Scott Parker, Emmanuel Adebayor and Luka Modric at home. "It's not a case of prioritising a game, it's just (using) what I have got," Redknapp said. "I couldn't bring players out here, play them on Thursday night and play the same group against Liverpool. "If I get a few injuries I have no back-up. I have nine senior, very, very good players who are injured. "Some of them have played two international games so I wanted to change the team around. I have done that. I have not been able to use the strong group I have for this first game because for this first game they're not fit. "After this we will be able to field almost two very, very good teams in Europe." Spurs opted to train at their Chigwell base on Wednesday morning instead of at the stadium. Redknapp denies that this is also a sign that Tottenham are not treating the competition with enough respect. "We are not arrogant. We just decided that we would train at home rather than here," Redknapp said. "Lots of teams do that. Arsenal do it for their European games. "If we travel and train on the pitch everyone can see what we will do in terms of set-pieces etc. It's ridiculous, but there is no arrogance. We respect them very much." Redknapp said that Sebastien Bassong is likely to captain a team that will only have Dos Santos, Kyle Walker, Vedran Corluka, Roman Pavlyuchenko and either Carlo Cudicini or Heurelho Gomes as their senior players. PAOK's squad is a mix of ageing South Americans and young Greek talent that is still developing as a unit after the installation of Laszlo Boloni as manager this summer. Redknapp's team are the bookmakers' favourites to win the match, but the man himself disagrees. "They are favourites to beat us because they are a good team. They have some very good players. I'm hoping we will turn in a good performance tomorrow," he said. He is, however, looking to the youngsters in the team to prove they can cut it in European competition. He said: "A couple of them played the second game against Hearts and did very well so there is an opportunity for them to play again. "They know it will be an intimidating game but it will be a good experience. I will learn a lot about the players when I see them play tomorrow." Former Barcelona man Dos Santos, who has spent the majority of his Spurs career on loan, also has something to prove after criticising Redknapp in public for blocking a summer move to Sevilla. "Gio is a good player," Redknapp said. "We had an offer of £13million from Udinese in the summer for him but he didn't want to go. He wanted to go to Seville and they only offered us 3million euros. "We think he is a fantastic talent, a Mexican international, a real talented player so I'm looking for him to turn in a good performance tomorrow."
