Jose Mourinho spoke today on the difficulties of the foreign player limits within the Spurs squad, adding that academy players are an option as other clubs also want to keep their English players.
Alasdair Gold recently reported for Football London that Tottenham currently have an issue with the number of foreign players in their squad.
Joe Rodon, who was signed from Swansea City back in the summer, was not named in the Europa League squad for the group stages as he joined the club too late.
Gold has revealed that Spurs will have to remove another ‘non-locally trained’ player from the squad in order to fit Rodon in, should Mourinho desire.
Gedson Fernandes and Paulo Gazzaniga were both already left out of the Europa League squad due to the same issue.
In the Premier League, Gold added that the rules were different but Spurs do currently have the maximum of 25, meaning someone would have to drop out if a new foreign player was signed.
Mourinho said (Football London): “I’m not even thinking of repercussions in relation to the transfer window, but the reality is that it was not easy to leave Gazzaniga out, but no other option.
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“Would be great for Joe Rodon’s development to play in the Europa League. We’ve played already nine matches in the Europa League and if Joe was available to play these nine matches he would have for sure have played in three, four, five or six of them and would help of course in his development and adaptation.
“So it’s not an easy situation. Then how can you have more English players? English players from the academy. Then you have to basically try to help the academy, but at the same time you depend on their work, you depend on generation, you depend on talent.
“And, honestly, I don’t know if I should say it or not, the players that I feel are more talented in the academy are not the eldest ones. They are very young.
“We are speaking about kids of 16-year-old, we are not speaking about 18 or 19, let’s say men that just need the last push. I feel that the biggest talents are very, very young.
“Of course, we have to help in their development in collaboration with the academy but we have to wait a little bit more.
“English players from other clubs, they want to keep them, because normally all of them they have the same kind of problems or potentially they have the same kind of problems.
“So it’s not easy, it’s not an easy situation and clearly it’s not a situation that you can resolve in one season. It’s not possible.”
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