Mauricio Pochettino has taken a strong 21-man Tottenham Hotspur squad on the long journey to Baku for Thursday’s Europa League tie against Qarabag, omitting only three first-team players through choice – Kyle Walker, Danny Rose and Mousa Dembélé.
The manager, who is also without the injured Nacer Chadli, Nabil Bentaleb, Érik Lamela and Alex Pritchard, has bemoaned the decision of the authorities to order a 12pm kick-off in Sunday’s derby against Chelsea at White Hart Lane, given that his squad will not get home from the game in Baku until 5am on Friday, at the earliest.
Tottenham can afford to lose to Qarabag and still qualify for the Europa League’s knockout phase – their final tie is at home to Monaco on 10 December – and some fans had wanted Pochettino to leave all of his stars back in London.
Pochettino had planned to take Bentaleb but, to his annoyance, the midfielder was the victim of a terrible challenge when playing for Algeria against Tanzania last week, which has aggravated a nagging ankle injury.
The damage, according to Pochettino, was not too serious but it has proved bad enough to keep Bentaleb out of contention. Lamela also picked up a knock on international duty for Argentina – he has a groin problem.
A feature of Pochettino’s squad is the presence of nine Academy products. The 17-year-old defender, Cameron Carter-Vickers, and the 18-year-old forward, Shayon Harrison, are included in a senior travelling squad for the first time and they join Josh Onomah, Harry Winks and Luke McGee, together with the more established quartet of Harry Kane, Ryan Mason, Andros Townsend and Tom Carroll.
