Jose Mourinho has admitted that the decision on which first-team players to leave out of Tottenham’s Europa League squad was a difficult one for him to make.
Tottenham named their 25-man squad for the group stages of the competition two weeks ago, with Gedson Fernandes, Paulo Gazzaniga and Danny Rose failing to make the cut.
Rose’s omission did not come as much of a surprise, with the left-back not being handed a squad number by the club and reports indicating that he has been frozen out of the first-team picture.
Gazzaniga’s omission from the squad two weeks ago was the clearest sign yet that the Argentine has now fallen behind Joe Hart in the pecking order, with the England keeper now looking like Hugo Lloris’ main understudy.
Meanwhile, Gedson’s solitary appearance this season came in the Carabao Cup clash against Chelsea and reports indicate that Spurs are considering ending his loan spell in January (Trio d’Ataque via 90 min).
Recent arrival Joe Rodon was also not signed in-time to be named in the Europa League squad, with the defender joining from Swansea City on EFL transfer deadline day.
When asked how hard it was to leave Gedson and Gazzaniga out, Mourinho told Football.London: “It is very difficult, to leave a player out is like to stop the player to fight for something he wants, that is always is very, very hard.
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“The good thing is in January you can change, so if you have a different view you change. The Gazzaniga situation, with Hugo and Joe we believe that for the next couple of months we can do it with an academy goalkeeper, with a young English kid.
“The problem is with the foreign players, we have some players like Ben Davies, like Matt Doherty that they are homegrown in the Premier League but not in Europe and that creates a problem. It is sad to leave people out but we have to make decisions.”
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