Andros Townsend is expected to seek a move away from Tottenham Hotspur in January having grown frustrated at a lack of playing time under Mauricio Pochettino.
The England winger has featured only three times as a substitute for Spurs in the league this season, amounting to 64 minutes of first-team football, and was an unused substitute as they beat Aston Villa 3-1 on Monday.
Pochettino preferred to use Ryan Mason, Ben Davies – for the injured Danny Rose – and Josh Onomah from the bench, with Townsend’s frustration appearing to boil over in the post-match warm-down as he became embroiled in a row with Nathan Gardiner, a member of Tottenham’s fitness staff, who was overseeing the running drills.
The 24-year-old, whose pre-season preparations were disrupted by injury, is contracted until 2017 though a number of clubs – West Bromwich Albion, Villa and Southampton among them – had expressed a desire in securing his services last summer.
Spurs knocked back that interest, with no club willing to match their £15m valuation, but have only offered him starts in the Europa League and Capital One Cup in the period since.
The issue is likely to be revisited in January when Townsend is expected to seek first-team football elsewhere as he bids to keep his hopes alive of featuring for England at Euro 2016.
While he has performed capably for Roy Hodgson, the winger was omitted from the squad for last month’s qualifiers against Estonia and Lithuania having failed to feature regularly for his club.
