Pochettino: Players are at risk

MAURICIO POCHETTINO has claimed his Tottenham Hotspur players are being put in danger by the demands placed on them at club and international level.

Nine of Pochettino’s squad reached the World Cup semifinals and the Argentinian is now without five first-team stars for today’s Cardiff City clash.

Tottenham are still sweating on whether Jan Vertonghen will be out for even longer than the six weeks Belgium manager Roberto Martinez has predicted.

Pochettino questioned Martinez’s decision to publicly put a timescale on Vertonghen’s absence with a hamstring injury without talking to Tottenham and before the defender’s next scan on Monday. Vertonghen, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen, Mousa Dembele and Serge Aurier are all out injured and Pochettino believes the amount of games players are expected to play is getting out of control.

“It’s dangerous,” said Pochettino. “Football is (a) massive business and it’s not easy and the football business today does not care about the player, it’s all about games, games, games.

“You finish the World Cup then first international break you have to compete again in an official tournament. It’s better to say to the player, ‘training, rest, recovery’. Then they need to go and I understand the national teams want their best players, always. The problem then is always for the clubs. It’s so difficult for the clubs.”

Vertonghen had already been ruled out of Belgium’s squad against Switzerland and Holland, but Martinez said: “It’s bad news. He could miss two Belgium camps.”

Belgium play Iceland and Switzerland on November 15 and 18, which means Vertonghen will miss Tottenham’s key Champions League games against PSV Eindhoven and the visit of Manchester City to Wembley.

But Pochettino did not rule out Vertonghen being sidelined even longer. When asked whether there was any fear the defender could be missing for three months, he said: “We hope as soon as possible it can be fixed, but we cannot guess.” (© Daily Telegraph, London)