During Mauricio Pochettino’s time as manager, being sent out on loan almost always meant the beginning of the end of a player’s Tottenham career.



In Pochettino’s five completed seasons at the club, Tom Carroll’s year as a squad player in 2015-16 was the closest anyone got to becoming a first-team regular after being farmed out elsewhere.



Otherwise, the pattern was for players such as Josh Onomah, Marcus Edwards and Georges-Kevin N’Koudou to go out on a temporary basis before leaving the club for good. Pochettino’s reluctance to loan potential first-teamers stemmed from a belief that it would be more beneficial for them to train with him and the Tottenham players than spend time elsewhere.



“I prefer to have our young players here and offer them the potential to be first‑team players,” he said in 2017. “If you don’t get the opportunities — like Harry [Kane] and some other players — to...