Spurs’ Starting XI Needs to be Rotated
By Ryan Wrenn
Some quick addition is all you need to see the difference between Spurs and the three other Premier League title challengers.
With twenty games played and eighteen left to go, Spurs’ best starting XI at the moment lead the top four in average minutes played so far this season with 1,492.
Mauricio Pochettino’s preference for a largely unaltered team week in and week out certainly has led to Spurs being the most consistent team in the Premier League, but it is also a potential recipe for disaster as the team enters the closing half of the season.
Consider that Spurs two biggest challengers – Arsenal and Manchester City – have best starting XIs that average more than a full game less than Spurs’ first team. That seems small now, but over the course of a season where every result matters, it could be massive come May.
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Leicester City is about where Spurs are at minutes-wise, but the Foxes haven’t been obliged to deal with the extra burden of an international tournament like the Europa League. Pochettino has elected – reasonably – to take Europe’s second tier competition seriously this season, but in so doing he’s committed a significant number of Premier League starters to that campaign as well. Toby Alderweireld played every minute of that competition along with every minute of the Premier League, while Eric Dier, Érik Lamela and Dele Alli aren’t too far behind.
All of which would be understandable if Spurs didn’t have any kind of reliable depth. Claudio Ranieri hasn’t done much rotated at Leicester because, simply put, their backups aren’t nearly as reliable as their starters. Can the same be said for Spurs though?
Both Kieran Trippier and Kevin Wimmer have had chances in the first team – albeit almost entirely in the Europa League group stage – and could step in for Kyle Walker and either of the centre-backs, respectively. Trippier did just that to great effect in the 2-1 win over Watford, where his cross set up Heung-min Son’s winning goal.
Pochettino might not want to risk unsettling the balance of a finely-tuned Spurs defense, but he might regret not doing so come the end of the season.
The midfield and attack are a bit of a different story. There actually has been a decent amount of rotation there, but mostly because it’s been forced upon Pochettino by injuries and suspensions. That doesn’t mean that there still shouldn’t be more rotation – Harry Kane in particular has been an ever-starting, ever-moving presence and could use a rest – but it’s less of a concern than it is in defense.
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Spurs are fortunate enough, when healthy, to have an abundance of options to rotate through the central midfield and attacking midfield. Nabil Bentaleb and Ryan Mason are both fit, though they might have trouble getting in ahead of Tom Carroll at this rate. Josh Onomah is continually on the bench and, presumably, Alex Pritchard will be as well once he returns from an ankle injury in February.
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Pochettino should jump at the opportunities the ebb and flow of form presents to him. Christian Eriksen’s slump should never remove him from consideration, but Pochettino should take advantage of that minor crisis and field other players in the Dane’s place for a match here and there. He’s already done that when Carroll started against Watford last week, and will have even more incentive to do it again when Pritchard returns.
It’s possible that even more options for the rotation arrive in January as well. No amount of options would do much to change Pochettino’s preference for a consistent starting XI, but there’s no reason to not explore the increasingly talented options available.