Mauricio Pochettino is certainly a manager who likes to rotate his squad through a season, and who can blame him with the hectic Premier League schedule, as well as three other competitions.
Spurs played and lost to Leicester City on Saturday in the Premier League, but have little time to recover before they face Colchester United away from home this evening.
As a result, I would expect Pochettino to heavily rotate his squad for the Carabao Cup match, not only to keep players fresh, but to hand much-needed minutes to fringe players and youngsters.
Despite only playing seven matches so far this season, Pochettino has already fielded 22 different players in the Premier League and Champions League, from Harry Kane to Georges-Kevin Nkoudou.
However, he insists that Tottenham take every match as seriously as the next, and finds it disrespectful when reporters imply otherwise.
One journalist asked Poch this week how seriously he would be taking the Carabao Cup, something the gaffer did not take too kindly to.
He said (Football London): “How seriously? Like all the games. We took seriously [against Leicester] and we took seriously the game we lost against Newcastle. We are going to take seriously, we need to avoid this type of question because it’s a question that (suggests) we don’t take matches seriously.
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“If we play Hugo Lloris – because he didn’t play [against Leicester] – are we going to take it more seriously than if we play Paulo Gazzaniga? Or [against Leicester] we took less seriously because we played Paulo instead of Hugo?
“This type of question we need to avoid because we show a lack of respect to the squad and the players and I don’t want to be rude with you because I am nice person. It surprises me this type of question because if I say something you twist my words.
“All the competitions we take seriously. For different reasons we need games. The young players need games to improve and try to show their quality and maybe fight for a place in the starting XI in the Champions League or Premier League.
“We are going to have a mix, we will assess the squad because we are going to have a very tough period and we need to manage the squad. We are going to be there trying to win the game.”
Spurs Web Opinion:
As a fan who desperately wants to see Spurs lift anything this season, I do hope that Poch takes the Carabao Cup games seriously this year. In my view, the Premier League is already just about a top-four finish and the FA Cup and League Cup should be seen as real chances to give these Spurs players the trophies they deserve.
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