Spurs boss makes claim about his starting line-up against Colchester United

Mauricio Pochettino has admitted that the team he picked to face Colchester United on Tuesday was good enough to win the game despite their penalty shoot-out defeat to the League Two outfit.

The Spurs boss made ten changes to his team – with goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga the only survivor from their Premier League defeat to Leicester City three days earlier.

Ben Davies, Eric Dier and Victor Wanyama were all handed their first starts of the campaign, whilst youngsters Oliver Skipp, Japhet Tanganga and 17-year-old Troy Parrott were all named in the starting line-up – the latter two making their senior debuts for the club.

Pochettino came under scrutiny for naming three defensive midfielders in his XI – with Tottenham heavy favourites to progress in 90 minutes against a side that are three leagues below them and currently sit 10th in League Two.

But despite crashing out, when speaking to Football.London, the Argentine said that the team he selected had enough quality in it to get the result: “When you don’t win you need accept that you were wrong. If you said to me that I knew I was going to lose the game, I would have played with a different team, maybe I would have played with the U23s or the U18s.

“It’s normal that when you lose the game you cannot say you were right. You cannot be arrogant, you cannot feel that your decisions are always right and good and with good time. You need to be a person that accepts the critics.

“When you don’t win you are never right and don’t have the right and you need to accept that. I truly believe that with the team that we decided to play against a League Two team was enough to win, but it was not enough because it is the beauty of football. It happened yesterday with the results and it can happen in the future. That is the beauty of the cup.”