Sign up to FREE email alerts from Football London - Spurs Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Mauricio Pochettino's latest comments may just have indicated that there could be a number of transfer moves in the January window at Tottenham Hotspur.

The Spurs boss admitted to football.london in February that he was devastated to have to take Juan Foyth out of his Champions League squad when the club signed Lucas Moura, because the club had too many foreign players in their ranks.

Nine months later the problem has not been addressed. The limit for non-locally trained players in a Champions League squad is 17 and Tottenham have 20.

Foyth, Georges-Kevin Nkoudou and Vincent Janssen have all had to be left out, with the problems exacerbated by the fact that Eric Dier, despite being an England international, and Ben Davies are not considered to be locally trained due to their academy years in Portugal and Wales.

Foyth has been in good form for Tottenham and Argentina this month and Pochettino admitted he is frustrated that he cannot use the young central defender in Europe.

He indicated that he hoped to be able to use him in March, if Spurs are still in the Champions League or the Europa League. For that to happen Tottenham would have to sell one foreign player in their European squad.

If Pochettino wanted to sign a foreign player in the January window then Spurs would have to sell yet another foreign player if they wanted to register that new person to play in Europe. Nkoudou and Janssen are not in the European squad so cannot affect that, but are expected to move on in January regardless.

Pochettino made it clear on Tuesday how unimpressed he is with the situation and reminded everyone that the issue is why the club have targeted homegrown players in the market, even if they couldn't actually sign any.

"It’s in the club’s hands [the foreign player issue], not mine only. We share the responsibility with the club, because if not it looks like the bad things is the gaffer and the good things we share all together," he said.

"Sometimes someone puts me, the gaffer, out of the club for good reasons. And when something wrong happens it’s Mauricio Pochettino, the coach. Yes, I’m so disappointed from the beginning because it’s not only him [Foyth] but GK Nkoudou and Vincent Janssen are out of the squad in the Champions League and that’s so painful. It’s so painful.

"It’s a mistake that we made that at this level of football we cannot repeat again. For different reasons we need to find solutions before the start of the season. I think we talk [before] and if you find my speech from the beginning of the season I was so disappointed because the squad was so big and when the people say ‘you’re the only club that doesn’t sign any players’, to sign another player means to put another player out of the list for the Champions League."

He added: "I told you we need English players, but it was impossible. Of course now that is the problem and it’s so painful to have players out of the list. Now we’re going to finish [the group stage] and then we hope in March we can do a new list and include him in the list for the Champions League. But in that moment when you needed to take a decision from the beginning, you cannot guess what is going to happen.

"That was a position where we had a lot of players, and today because in the last few months we have now no Davinson, and Jan was injured. That is why we used Juan or we gave many players the opportunity. But I’m so disappointed with that situation. I’m happy with him, his evolution. He’s going to play of course and he’s showed great quality, but I’m disappointed that we cannot come with him in the Champions League of course."

Keep up to date with the latest Tottenham Hotspur news, features and exclusives from football.london via our free WhatsApp service.

Text NEWS to 07776197989 and then add the number to your phone contacts book as spurs dot london (case sensitive, with spaces) to receive daily updates and breaking news from Alasdair Gold and the team on Spurs.

Your phone number won't be shared with any other members of the group. Click here for more information on the service.