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Tottenham Hotspur have managed to get themselves into a restrictive scenario when it comes to their foreign players and it's left the fans wondering exactly how it's happened.

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

Nine months later the problem has not been addressed at all. The limit for non-locally trained players in a 25-man Champions League squad is 17 and Tottenham have 20.

That meant Foyth, Georges-Kevin Nkoudou and Vincent Janssen have all had to be left out for the second registration period in a row, although technically Nkoudou and Janssen were both on loan at Burnley and Fenerbahce in the last period.

Spurs fans have been left wondering exactly why Tottenham are falling foul of this limit and others aren't.

How the problem arose

What the club can't really control is that they are hamstrung by the bizarre nature of the rules surrounding who is classed as locally trained.

Those rules state that Eric Dier, despite being an England international, and Ben Davies are not considered to be locally trained due to their academy years being spent in Portugal and Wales rather than in England.

That means that Tottenham immediately start off with two 'foreign' players who actually play for home nations.

One issue that certainly was in the club's control was the decision to have three foreign goalkeepers in Hugo Lloris, Paulo Gazzaniga and Michel Vorm.

Some of the other English Champions League sides have at least one English keeper among their three senior names. Chelsea have Rob Green and Manchester United have Lee Grant for that reason.

There are other ways around that issue. Liverpool's academy goalkeepers Caoimhin Kelleher and Kamil Grabara don't count towards their squad numbers as they are on the B list, for locally trained players until the age of 21.

The same is the case with Manchester City's Arijanet Muric, leaving both City and Liverpool with just two goalkeepers counting towards their A list squad limit.

Tottenham didn't help their problems by failing to move on a single player in the summer, while failing to add any homegrown signings to their numbers.

What Mauricio Pochettino has said about it

"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," said Pochettino on Tuesday.

"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.

"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."

How it affects the transfer window

Spurs are linked every day in the media with a new foreign signing, but the reality is they simply can't add any more right now.

Tottenham's primary focus for new signings is homegrown players, as Pochettino explained above, which is why they tried to sign Aston Villa's Jack Grealish in the summer.

Then there is Foyth. The 20-year-old defender 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 and that he wants to add him during the next registration period ahead of the knockout stages - if Spurs are still in the Champions League or Europa League.

That would mean that Tottenham would have to remove at least one foreign player from the current 17 registered.

If Pochettino wanted to then sign a foreign player in the January window Spurs would have to sell yet another non-locally trained 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.

The options

The most obvious option, although it would be a painful one for Pochettino, would be to drop Michel Vorm from the European squad. The 35-year-old's contract expires next summer, with the club having already taken an option to extend it by a year last summer.

Pochettino would then have fourth choice keeper Alfie Whiteman, an academy stopper who could be placed on the B list. If the manager decided the 20-year-old, who is yet to play competitively for Spurs, is too inexperienced then a veteran English keeper could be sought with Vorm potentially moving on in January.

There are also question marks over the future of Mousa Dembele. The Belgian's contract expires in the summer and moves to China or Italy have mooted as Spurs may be forced into cashing in on the 31-year-old midfielder rather than lose him for free.

However, Dembele's ankle injury, which will keep him out until January may have thrown some doubt over any potential departure.

Another player out of contract in the summer is Fernando Llorente. The striker, who turns 34 in February, is unlikely to extend his deal so Spurs could look to move him on in January. They could then either sign an English striker to challenge Harry Kane or continue to use Heung-Min Son and Lucas Moura as makeshift forwards when needed.

Either way Tottenham will look to fix their foreign player issues in January, Pochettino has made that very clear.

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