Mauricio Pochettino has admitted that he will have to make wholesale changes to his Tottenham Hotspur team that faces West Ham United in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday evening.
Spurs must deal with the challenges of playing two fixtures in a short period of time. First up is the visit of Manchester City on Monday night at Wembley, followed by the cup clash at the London Stadium just 48 hours later.
Pochettino revealed that he will be fielding his strongest team to take on City on Monday in the Premier League but will have to dig deep into his squad to keep their legs fresh for the match against the Hammers.
Wednesday evening would present the opportunity for Pochettino to give the likes of Oliver Skipp, Juan Foyth and Kyle Walker-Peters to play in the first team.
“I think it will be difficult, but we are going to see, because the pre-season was different,” Pochettino told Football.London
“When we played last year in the Christmas period, Boxing Day, when you play with 48 hours in between two games you play against teams that are in a similar condition to you. But now it’s still difficult to be in the same condition as different teams.
“If you are going to assess how West Ham are going to arrive. They going to play Saturday and then Wednesday against us but we play Wednesday, Monday and then Wednesday and we are not going to arrive in a similar condition.”
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He added: “That is why we are thinking it will be difficult to repeat with some players who will play on Monday. That is why we are thinking, overthinking which is not so good, but we need to put two teams that will be so competitive in both games.
“Because first on Monday try to put the best starting XI out to be close to win and then Wednesday don’t be wrong we will play a very fresh team away from home again and sometimes it’s not fair because you know in 48 hours it’s very difficult for players to recover.
“But if you play against a team that played 48 hours before maybe that power and energy is similar but maybe in that case it’s not the same.”
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