It was easy to make sense of Ange Postecoglou's decision to leave Heung-min Son, Dejan Kulusevski and Djed Spence on the bench for Wednesday's 1-0 defeat to Manchester City. Son, 32, had started the 10 previous matches and has appeared jaded for most of the season, while Kulusevski has featured in every game this term and recently admitted he was going into some fixtures at “40-50 per cent” during the club's mid-winter injury crisis.
Spence has gone from barely featuring in the first half of the campaign to playing regularly since bursting onto the scene in December. As Postecoglou pointed out, not rotating his XI after spending weeks lamenting the state of his decimated squad might have been considered "highly hypocritical".
As much as wanting to protect three of his most important players, Postecoglou also highlighted the need to build up others' fitness when asked about his line-up post-match; Wilson Odobert made his first start since September, while Destiny Udogie and Brennan Johnson continued their returns from injury with a second start in five days.
“We needed Destiny, Brennan and Wilson to get some minutes,” Postecoglou said. “Deki, Sonny and Djed have played an enormous amount, so having them have a little bit of a breather, I thought was going to be helpful for us. “But more importantly, now I've got three more players who are getting close... it's 90 minutes for Brennan, that's the first 90 minutes for quite a while.
“We're going to have some real options which we're going to need because we've got Europa and league back-to-back now and we need as many bodies available for that as possible.”. Again, Postecoglou's reasoning was easy to follow. The Europa League is naturally the priority for Spurs, so there is a case that nothing else should matter except ensuring the squad are in the best possible condition to win the trophy.
Better for Postecoglou to have Udogie, Johnson and Odobert fully up to speed for the crucial two-legged tie against AZ Alkmaar in the last-16, either side of a league visit from Bournemouth, than risk the trio being undercooked or, worse, breaking down again during an intense three-game cycle.
But while Postecoglou's logic was understandable, it was still contentious to bench three of his best players in the circumstances, particularly as Spurs now have a week off before the first leg in Alkmaar, and both Spence and Kulusevski played 90 minutes in the 4-1 win over Ipswich on Saturday.
“Kulusevski, Son and Spence are on the bench,” said a seemingly surprised Pep Guardiola post-match, when talking-up Spurs' squad depth. Though their league campaign will be hard to salvage, the visit of City was also a potentially significant game for Spurs, a chance for Postecoglou's side to beat the champions for a third time this season and build-up some momentum in the top-flight with a fourth straight win.
Had they beaten Guardiola's fragile champions and followed it up with another home win over Bournemouth, Spurs would have suddenly been only four points behind the Cherries and in the mix for a European place which seemed enormously unlikely a few weeks ago.
Postecoglou, though, by his own admittance was focussed as much on what lies ahead for his side as the immediate challenge posed by City in north London. And the inclusion of Mathys Tel at centre-forward again felt like another example of this attitude. The 19-year-old is a huge prospect but he does not look ready to lead the line in the Premier League, and barely made an impression on Wednesday night for a second game running.
Postecoglou has said he is persisting with Tel “to build up his fitness” and so the on-loan forward can get “used to the way we play... and the level of competition”, and the manager has few other options up-front while Dominic Solanke and Richarlison are sidelined.
But Kulusevski, Son or even Dane Scarlett would surely have troubled City more than Tel, again suggesting that Postecoglou was not exactly treating the game as a must-win. The bottom line is that it just so often feels as though Postecoglou's Spurs are willing to accept short-term pain because of a fervent belief they will benefit long-term.
There was also evidence of this thinking during their injury crisis, during which the Australian rarely adapted his approach to suit the dire circumstances, but constantly reiterated that Spurs would show “growth” when their casualty list finally cleared.
He is right - just look at Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall now - but, again, Spurs would be bang in the mix for the European places now if they had managed to scrape together a few more results in December and January. Last season, Spurs prioritising the long-term ahead of short-term results - best exemplified by their set-up with nine men in the 4-1 defeat to Chelsea - was understandable but more than 18 months into Postecoglou's project, there has to be more focus on winning the games at hand, rather than prepping for the future.
