Tottenham Hotspur were knocked out of the FA Cup this evening, as they fell to a 2-0 defeat to Crystal Palace in the fourth round.
This comes just four days after the Lilywhites were denied a League Cup final by rivals Chelsea, losing the two-legged tie 4-2 on penalties.
Mauricio Pochettino chose to field a significantly weakened Spurs team today against Palace, added to the already problematic injuries.
Spurs were without Harry Kane and Dele Alli through injury, as well as Moussa Sissoko and Ben Davies who picked up knocks against Chelsea.
Heung Min Son, although back from the Asia Cup, was too fatigued to play a part today either.
Despite these injury problems, Pochettino still chose to rest the likes of Harry Winks, Danny Rose, and Christian Eriksen, with the latter not even making the bench.
This left Spurs without four of their top five goal scorers, and arguably their two in form players in Rose and Winks.
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He was asked in his presser if he regretted making changes, leaving the likes of Eriksen out (Football London): “Regrets? No, no. We played with our best team that we can play at the moment. I think it was a moment, of course, for different players to play, to help the team. I think we came from a very crazy fixture [list] and were forced to take some decisions, rest some players and rotate. But like in the past we are going to play Wednesday too and Saturday. Always this is a disadvantage against our opponent. Watford played yesterday. It’s true, this season has been tough. I told you it would be a massive challenge for us, but at that point we believed it’ll be a tough season but not tougher than it’s been.
“Of course, disappointed because, after Thursday and today again, out of two competitions. We feel disappointed. You can’t feel anything different. But now we need to be positive and be ready because we are still in two competitions, we are in a good position in the Premier League and the Champions League, that is a massive motivation for the whole club. We need to be strong. We feel disappointed but are looking forward to being ready for Wednesday.”
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