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Tottenham to add Foyth to their Champions League squad… if they beat Inter and Barcelona

Mauricio Pochettino says Tottenham must not repeat the mistake of having too many foreign players in their Champions League squad, with in-form defender Juan Foyth ineligible for Inter Milan’s must-win visit on Wednesday.

Foyth, who has started Spurs’ last three League games, was left out of the club’s 22-man squad along with forgotten forwards Vincent Janssen and Georges-Kevin Nkoudou. Champions League clubs are limited to 17 non-locally trained players and Spurs currently have 20 – with Welsh left-back Ben Davies and Eric Dier, who was raised in Portugal, both counting as foreign-trained.

Should they reach the knockouts by beating Inter and Barcelona in their final two group matches, Pochettino hopes to be able to include Foyth, 20, in an updated squad in March. The Spurs manager stressed that the situation was not his fault alone and admitted it had an effect on their summer transfer business.

“It’s in the club’s hands – not mine only. We share the responsibility with the club, because if not it looks like the bad things are [down to] the gaffer and the good things we share,” Pochettino said.

“I’m so disappointed from the beginning because it’s not only him [Foyth] but GK Nkoudou and Vincent Janssen, and that’s so painful. It’s a mistake that we made that at this level of football [that] we cannot repeat again. 

“We need to find solutions before the start of the season. From the beginning of the season, I was so disappointed because the squad was so big and when the people say ‘you’re the only club that doesn’t sign any players’, to sign another player means to put another player out of the list for the Champions League. I told you we need English players, but it was impossible. Of course now that is the problem and it’s so painful to have players out of the list. 

“Now we’re going to finish [the group stage] and then we hope in March we can do a new list and include him in the list for the Champions League. But in that moment when you needed to take a decision from the beginning, you cannot guess what is going to happen. That was a position where we had a lot of players, and today because in the last few months we have now no Davinson, and Jan was injured. 

“That is why we used Juan or we gave many players the opportunity. But I’m so disappointed with that situation. I’m happy with him, his evolution. He’s going to play of course and he’s showed great quality, but I’m disappointed that we cannot come with him in the Champions League.”

Spurs host Inter at Wembley on the back off Saturday’s impressive 3-1 demolition of Chelsea at the national stadium, in which Dele Alli scored for the sixth time in as many appearances against the Blues. Alli has also scored against Manchester City, Man United, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Arsenal since joining Spurs and Pochettino said the midfielder relishes the big occasions.

“You know Dele, he loves a challenge, every single game and big things,” Pochettino said. “He is a winner, his mentality is that he gets bored quick when he doesn’t feel the pressure and challenge. We laugh a lot with Jesus, when he is alone with the ball in front of the goal he is boring, we say, ‘Oh that is Dele Alli’, but when he is with opposition and with pressure he is unbelievable. He is a competitor, he loves this type of game, he loves to compete in a difficult situation. This is how I describe him.”
 

Son’s resurgence threatened by more Korea commitments

There are few sights in English football more exhilarating than Heung-Min Son in full flight, as Chelsea’s Jorginho discovered on Saturday. 

Son sprinted nearly 70 yards, with Jorginho bobbing along helplessly in his wake, to score Tottenham’s third goal in the 3-1 win over Chelsea and remove some of the gloss from the summer signing from Napoli. It was surely not what Jorginho had in mind when he was told the Premier League is more fast-paced than Italian football.

Son’s first league goal since March capped his best performance of the season by some distance, something which has gone relatively unnoticed amid adulation for Dele Alli, who opened the scoring, and Moussa Sissoko, who somehow managed to be in more places at once than his France team-mate N’Golo Kante.

It was a typical display by Son, both menacing and a little wasteful as he missed three easier chances in the first half before ending the visitors’ hopes of a fightback in the 54th minute. 

The timing of Son’s return to prominence is no coincidence. His subdued start to the campaign came off the back of a gruelling schedule for South Korea, culminating in eight matches in 26 days from mid-August, including six on boggy pitches in searing Indonesian heat at the Asian Games.

South Korea’s gold medal — coming along with precious exemption from his country’s mandatory two-year conscription — came at a short-term cost for Tottenham. 

Before this weekend, he looked sapped and short of rhythm. But what a difference a rest can make. Son’s blistering humiliation of Jorginho and David Luiz came after he skipped South Korea’s friendlies in Australia against the Socceroos and Uzbekistan, demanded by Spurs as part of the deal to release him for the Asian Games. 

Having barely had a holiday following the World Cup, Son spent the international break at Hotspur Way, enjoying some welcome respite. Saturday was also, surprisingly, the first time this season that he has started in a front four with Alli, Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane, having done so 20 times last year.

Lucas Moura and Erik Lamela both have cases to be Spurs’ story of the season so far but Mauricio Pochettino’s ‘DESK’ attack has a bit of everything, not least an understanding born of three seasons playing together. 

On days like Saturday, there is a case that Tottenham’s frontline is more frightening than that of Manchester City or Liverpool.

The question ahead for Pochettino is how many times he will be able to use the quartet at full-pelt this season, with Son’s international commitments again likely to prove the biggest sticking point. In January, he is due to play for South Korea in the Asian Cup.

Spurs and the Korean FA have agreed that he will miss the first two group games but he is due in Abu Dhabi in time to face China in the third on January 16. 

If, as expected, South Korea reach the final, Son will probably play five games in 18 days before returning to Spurs in February. Son’s commitments in the New Year promise another headache for Pochettino. 

For now, the South Korean is back to his electrifying best but Spurs may only have a limited window to enjoy the kind of performance he produced on Saturday in their most dangerous attacking line-up.

Tottenham vs Inter Milan

Tottenham centre-back Davinson Sanchez has been backed to become one of the best defenders in world football by former team-mate Davy Klaasen.

Sanchez, 22, has been an impressive addition to Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham squad since joining from Ajax for a club record £42million last summer and the 22-year-old has established himself as a mainstay in the Spurs side, playing every minute of their Champions League campaign this season.

Klaasen and Sanchez were part of the Ajax that finished runners-up in the 2017 Europa League, with the latter establishing himself as one of the continent’s most highly-prized youngsters on their run to the final.

Now at Wolfsburg after a disastrous spell with Everton, Klaasen believes Sanchez can establish himself as among the best at his position.

“I think [Davinson Sanchez] does great at the moment,” Klaasen told Goal. “I think from the beginning he was so good and I have no doubt that he will be a top, top player.

“I don’t know where he will go after this, but I’m sure he’ll be one of the best defenders in the world.”

Sanchez missed Saturday’s 3-1 win over Chelsea with a hamstring injury and will also be unavailable for the visit of Inter Milan to Wembley on Wednesday.