Mauricio Pochettino dampened the prospect of an experimental evening in the FA Cup third round at Tranmere by promising to pick an XI who have already featured in the Champions League or Premier League this season.
That leaves Oliver Skipp — a starter for the first time in the win over Burnley — and Kyle Walker-Peters, who came through a baptism of fire at the Nou Camp last month, as the only recent academy graduates with a chance of meaningful minutes — although George Marsh, TJ Eyoma, Troy Parrott, Anthony Georgiou and Jamie Bowden have all trained with the squad this week.
Two years ago, Pochettino used six academy players in a 5-0 cup win over Gillingham — a division above League Two Tranmere — but his selection tonight will underline how much harder it has become to break into Tottenham’s squad since he joined the club in 2014.
“If you were seven out of 10 four years ago, you were going to have the possibility to play. But now we have said to them that they need to be an eight or an eight-and a half,” Pochettino said last year.
The Spurs manager has given debuts to 13 academy players — not including Harry Kane, Ryan Mason, Nabil Bentaleb or Andros Townsend, who all featured prominently in his first season — to earn a reputation as a champion of youth but, as expectation has increased, he has become more pragmatic.
Today, only a select few make it at Tottenham and there is a sense that attitude is just as important as talent for Pochettino. “Now it is not only about quality. It is not only about showing something,” he has said. “You need to show quality, mental strength, physical condition and everything if you want to get the possibility to play in the first team.”
Probable Spurs line-up
Tottenham (4-2-3-1): Gazzaniga; Walker-Peters, Sanchez, Foyth, Davies; Skipp, Sissoko; Moura, Eriksen, Son; Llorente
It is no coincidence that the academy players who have progressed furthest — England internationals Kane and Harry Winks — are also among the best professionals in the game and the manager’s most loyal foot soldiers. Winks, for example, never pushed for a loan move on Pochettino’s advice, even when he was wanted by a host of Championship clubs two years ago.
Skipp, by all accounts is among the most dedicated young players at the club, while Walker-Peters, like Winks, has followed his manager’s guidance by waiting patiently for a chance rather than agitating for first-team football.
More naturally gifted players, notably Joshua Onomah and Marcus Edwards, who was once compared to Lionel Messi by Pochettino, have not lived up to the manager’s standards and are out on loan, with little prospect of making a breakthrough at Spurs.
While there is an argument that Pochettino’s high standards could cost the club — Edwards was once considered the equal of Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho — it is hard to question his judgement. There is not a single youngster who has left Spurs under the Argentine which the club have lived to regret.
In spite of their progress, Skipp and Walker-Peters still have a way to go and Pochettino does not fully trust them yet. In the damaging 3-1 defeat to Wolves at the end of last year, Pochettino left both on the bench, even with right-back Kieran Trippier struggling after a blow to the head and centre-midfield duo of Moussa Sissoko and Winks out on their feet.
Tonight’s game therefore represents a significant opportunity for the young duo, particularly with Trippier and Serge Aurier, Walker-Peters’s rivals at right-back, struggling for form and Spurs are desperately short of options in Skipp’s position while Mousa Dembele, Victor Wanyama and Eric Dier remain sidelined.
Dembele and Jan Vertonghen have returned to training after ankle and thigh injuries respectively, but neither will feature on Merseyside, while Erik Lamela is again absent after leaving training yesterday because of illness.
The only remaining caveat to Pochettino’s remarkable work at Spurs is the club’s lack of silverware, but he has reiterated that winning the FA Cup is not a priority, and claims he would have been sacked by chairman Daniel Levy if he had won a string of domestic cups while finishing mid-table.
“My ambition is to win the Champions League or the Premier League with Tottenham,” he said. “To win the Carabao Cup and be in the middle of the table, I think I would have been sacked a few years ago! Even with two or three Carabao Cups or FA Cups!
“If you don’t finish how we have finished in the last three seasons but [win] the FA Cup, I don’t know if Daniel would have too much patience with me and say, ‘Okay, you’re 10th in the Premier League, have a new contract!’”
