Paulinho had heard about "rotation" before he moved to England last summer but he had never experienced it. Now he has, and he does not like it. At all. The Brazil international, who joined Spurs for a then record £17m, wants to play every possible game, every possible minute – and it has not happened this season.

But setbacks of this sort do not faze the 25-year-old, who looks certain to be included in Brazil's World Cup squad despite his lack of playing time at Spurs. He has already had his sliding-door moment, six years ago, when he decided to fight on rather than to quit football altogether. At that time he had already been to Europe once, playing for Vilnius in Lithuania and Lodz in Poland, and did not get a contract with a top-flight club in Brazil when he returned.

Any thoughts of giving up, however, were ended by his wife, Barbara. "She basically told me I would be letting down my family and everybody who had sacrificed something to support my dream of being a professional footballer. She was quite tough on me," he says. "I keep her words and the memories of the difficulties I have had in my career as a way to keep things in perspective when things don't go my way. In the meantime, I have to keep my head down and work hard."

And an improvement is needed, both for Paulinho and Spurs. It has been a tumultuous season at White Hart Lane and this week Tim Sherwood challenged Paulinho to "prove himself" in training in order to cement his place in the starting XI. "I pick players on what they are doing in training, not on reputations and price tags," the Tottenham manager said. "I can't be worrying if the Brazil national manager wants him to play every week. I am going to do what is best for Tottenham, not any national manager."

Paulinho is happy to work hard in training – and that is exactly what he is doing, but he does admit that it hurts not to be playing. "You are told before coming to Europe that big teams here quite often rotate players," he says. "I respect this culture but it is instinctive for me to get annoyed if I don't play every game. I always want to be on the pitch, much as I know it is my first season here and how difficult it is for a South American player to adapt to the demands of the Premier League."

Spurs' woes this season are well known in England but were only recently picked up by the Brazilian press. Headlines in the country spoke of Paulinho being relegated to the bench and although that sounds harsh considering he has been given an average 76 minutes per game for the club this season, the news reached the seleção command, already scarred by the goalkeeper Júlio César's descent into oblivion at Queens Park Rangers. Brazil's technical director, Carlos Alberto Parreira, duly met Paulinho last week to discuss the situation. "We obviously take into account what happens to a player at his club, but the most important is how they have behaved while at national team duty. Paulinho has been instrumental for us and we fully trust him to keep doing his job for Brazil," said Parreira.

Paulinho seems to have been singled out by Sherwood as part of his frustrations with the team's form. A point duly noted by the midfielder, who is clearly not comfortable to talk about the situation, although by no means does he back down from defending himself. "Sherwood is in charge and every manager has a style. It's his call if he wants to publicly criticise the players. It's up to each one of us to have a clean conscience about what they are doing for the team. I am very comfortable in saying that I have been working hard and trying to do what the club signed me for," explains the Brazilian, speaking at a Gatorade event aimed at showcasing the energy drink's collaboration with the seleção. "They have done a lot of tests with us in training sessions and matches, as well as the lab ahead of the World Cup to ensure we last the full 90 minutes."

Paulinho didn't imagine his first season at Spurs would be this testing. He walked into a club then managed by a fellow Portuguese speaker, André Villas-Boas, somebody who could certainly help his second shot at making his name in Europe, especially after guiding Spurs to a respectable fifth-place finish in the previous season. Villas-Boas, however, left Tottenham only four months after Paulinho's arrival and the Brazilian admits it wasn't the happiest of times. "It was hard to see André go. He was the guy who asked the club to sign me, so you have to be disappointed when that happens," he says. "Having said that, this is not a new situation in my life. It happened to me in Brazil at Corinthians, when the manager who had got me in the first team [Mano Menezes] left in 2010. The manager changes and you just have to make sure you show the [new] guy you mean business."

Tottenham are far from glory days with a top-four finish now unlikely following drubbings at the hands of Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool. "The manager and the fans have the right to be upset at the team," says Paulinho. "A team like ours should not have been routed in those games. But the players know it. It's just important we stand together at the bad times too. I can assure you nobody at the club will be happy if we fail to qualify for the Champions League. One of the reasons I came to this club was to help them play at the top level."

The Spurs man is all but guaranteed in Scolari's squad for the World Cup, although lately the fight for places in the group more interesting after Fernandinho received a well deserved call-up and thanked Scolari with an impressive display for Brazil against South Africa a month ago, when he tested by Scolari both in place of both Luiz Gustavo and Paulinho, the midfield stalwarts Scolari has been using for a while now. "Fernandinho is having a wonderful season at City and he has rightfully received a chance in the team. But his good form is not a problem for me – Big Phil is the one who has to be worried about having so many midfielders to choose from," Paulinho explains.

It looks like this one knows how to stand his ground.