Tottenham Hotspur suffered a defeat at the hands of Liverpool this weekend in the Premier League but the team will not have any time to sulk over the defeat as they head to Italy.
Spurs will take on Inter Milan at the San Siro in the UEFA Champions League and Mauricio Pochettino has some serious selection headaches before the match.
The Lilywhites manager named his provisional squad for the Champions League opener and to everyone’s surprise, a host of first-team players were missing from the list.
The first name that was missing was that of Dele Alli who will not make the journey to Italy since he is suffering from a hamstring injury and will probably take one more week to be fully fit.
First choice keeper Hugo Lloris too will the Champions League game vs Inter since he is sidelined with a thigh muscle strain. This means that Michel Vorm will take his place in the starting line-up just like the Liverpool game.
Moussa Sissoko is out with a knee injury and has not been included in the provisional squad by Mauricio Pochettino.
Apart from these injury absentees, Spurs will also miss the duo of Kieran Trippier and Toby Alderweireld who will not make the journey due to ‘technical reasons’.
And the manager has somewhat explained what these technical reasons are during the pre-match press conference.
“It’s a technical decision. You can look it up in the dictionary. Tactical? That is on the pitch, although guess you could say this is tactical off of the pitch,” Pochettino said.
“You are clever enough to understand that this is my fifth season and I never punish players. The plan is to leave them there and use different players tomorrow. There’s nothing behind it, only that we’re playing with different players.
“Everyone is available to give their best. Of course, we need to try to give our best. We have ahead of a lot of games. We came from difficult circumstances with the World Cup. We have a plan to give different players a rest in all competitions.”
Provisional squad: Vorm, Gazzaniga, Walker-Peters, Vertonghen, Rose, Sanchez, Davies, Dier, Wanyama, Dembele, Eriksen, Lamela, Winks, Moura, Son, Llorente, Kane.
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