Tottenham Hotspur will be back in action on Sunday as they host Arsenal in the North London derby.
There have been numerous narratives doing the rounds ahead of the game, from potential absences to the need for Spurs and Arsenal to win after mixed starts to the season.
With regards to Tottenham, there is also the question of how much game time Spurs will look to give a player who was controversially omitted from their Europa League squad.
The player in question is Djed Spence, whose impressive pre-season saw him go from a near-certainty to be sold to a useful squad option for Ange Postecoglou.
However, Tottenham made the decision to omit him from their Europa League squad, as a result of the knock-on effect from Spurs’ lack of club-trained players.
With Spence now unavailable for the Europa League, the hope is that he will be prioritised for domestic competition, and Postecoglou has now had his say on the topic.
Djed Spence backed for ‘plenty of football’ at Tottenham
Postecoglou, speaking to football.london, acknowledged that Spence has been unfortunate due to the squad’s situation, but stressed that he should nonetheless play a “huge part” this season.
“Look, it was always going to be a difficult decision, said the Tottenham boss.
“Obviously with the makeup of our squad currently – you are always going to have to leave somebody out and Djed was the unfortunate one.
“But at the same time, Djed’s already played in the Premier League and, if you asked him at the start of the year where he sees himself, I think the fact that he’s part of our squad and will obviously play a huge part in our year because he has already.
“I don’t think you should take too much disappointment. Obviously everyone wants to play, but in the end it was about team B for us and we just feel that with the squad we’ve got, we’ve got some cover on the right side.
“[We] got some players you can cover on the left side. I always tend to go for more attacking players in those kind of scenarios, so Djed misses out but, as I said, he’s already played in you know a couple of games in the Premier League.
“There will be plenty of football for him if he keeps going like he is.”
Spence suffers as perfect storm hits Spurs
It’s clear that Tottenham didn’t omit Spence from their Europa League squad just to spite him.
If they really didn’t want him, they’d have offloaded him in the summer as they did with a number of other players.
However, years of not bringing club-trained players through, combined with the likes of Oliver Skipp leaving this summer and very specific Europa League rules, left Spurs in a difficult position.
This shouldn’t happen again next year as there will be more options that will have been at Tottenham for two years.
In the meantime, Spence will hopefully get to add to his eight Spurs appearances in the Premier League, the League Cup and the FA Cup over the coming months.
