Talksport pundit Tony Cascarino has blasted Mauricio Pochettino’s decision to rotate his full backs regularly throughout the season.
The Argentine boss has a number of options who can play on either side of defence with senior talents Danny Rose, Ben Davies, Kieran Trippier and Serge Aurier backed up by the versatile Kyle Walker-Peters.
However, Cascarino has insisted that the constant rotation is not doing the side any good, highlighting just how important the full backs are to the way Spurs operate.
He told talkSPORT (02/03): “They’re not quite good enough. I think they just lack in a few departments.
“He shuffled his full backs around quite alarmingly at times, you’ll get many different types of fullback – you could have a Trippier, you can go to Aurier, then you’ll have Danny Rose – he shuffles all these full backs all the time.
“I think that’s an issue because they’re big players for Spurs.”
“They’re not quite good enough.”
“I also think certain Spurs players like Eriksen have not quite been at it.” ?
@TonyCascarino62 on the reasons behind #THFC’s recent defeats ?? pic.twitter.com/M0qeleIgdB
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) March 2, 2019
Opinion
Pochettino’s argument against Cascarino’s point will be that rotation is crucial to keeping his players fit and firing throughout the whole season but the pundit makes a valid suggestion. Swapping his stars in and out means that the Argentine is constantly disrupting the balance of his back line and the likes of the centre backs and wingers are always having to adapt to having a new player alongside them in the starting XI. The fact of the matter is the full backs have been in and out of form this season, injuries also playing their part, and if one could put together a string of consistent performances then maybe he would be kept in the line up for an extended period. No one has really done that so far and so Pochettino has had to chop and change as he sees fit – Cascarino is not a fan and maybe the supporters should not be too happy with his tactical decisions either.