Pochettino's selection in last League Cup loss to Arsenal rankles with many

Arsenal and Tottenham go head to head on Wednesday night as they search for a place in the League Cup quarter-finals.

Spurs fans are keen to win their first piece of silverware under Mauricio Pochettino but it remains to be see whether the Argentine will play his strongest team during the busy festive period.

Here, Neil Vaughan of Spurs Web, gives his views on the highly-anticipated clash at the Emirates Stadium.

Which will come first, a trophy for Spurs or the opening of the new White Hart Lane?

I wouldn't hold my breath in anticipation of either but it’s not unrealistic to expect that both might actually happen within the next couple of months and with the Carabao final scheduled for the end of February, maybe within a few days of each other. What a nice and friendly leaving present from Wembley that would be.

There are obstacles of course, the first one being Arsenal at the Emirates where less than a month ago we put on a second half defensive display equally as porous as the roof over the new South Stand by the sounds of it. A seventeen thousand seater swimming pool?

Under Pochettino, we have played Arsenal once before in this competition, in September 2015 when it was then known as the Capital One Cup. We lost 2-1 and the manager’s selection that evening still rankles with many as he seemed to either not understand or not care that we were facing our biggest rivals despite it being his second season in charge and us reaching the final the season before.

At the back, Federico Fazio and Kevin Wimmer played in front of Michel Vorm. It was Wimmer’s domestic competition debut and Fazio’s last ever appearance for us. It didn’t go well.

A stronger team selection this time round coupled with the right result will mean closure on one of the few, one of the very very few, issues that supporters’ might have with the Argentine.

Poch won’t see it, his selection options that is, in quite such a straight forward way. He’s such a positive thinker that he will still have his eyes on bigger prizes than the Carabao.

He won’t want to risk his strongest players if he doesn’t have to. Despite injury, tiredness and form issues we are still third in the Premier League and he’ll believe that the front two are catchable.

A pipe dream some may think but our league finishes of third, second and third in the last three years, our trouncing of Real Madrid last year and against-the-odds qualification for the knockout stages of the Champions League this year plus the swatting aside of many other curses and taboos, finishing above Wenger’s Arsenal, winning at Stamford Bridge for instance, mean that one feels foolish to doubt what this man can achieve at our club.

It’s no wonder that speculation around his future arises when a vacancy appears such as the one currently at Manchester United, it’s something we’ve had to worry about for several years.

All we as fans can do is hope that the future scenarios that Daniel Levy can dangle in front of him are still glittery enough for him not to be distracted by the bling from elsewhere.

Why would he go to Man Utd? What assurances and certainties can they offer that he will not receive in N17? It’s hard to believe that a Spurs fan can be bold enough to make statements like that given the history of the clubs over the last 25 years or so, but I can, and it’s all down to Poch.

Our last trophy win was in 2008 when Jonathan Woodgate’s extra-time header won us the then Carling Cup. It’s been a while. We have new heroes, we’d like them rewarded with prizes and trophies.

We’re not going to sniff at the League Cup in its newest guise, we’ll take it if we can thanks. Winning at the Emirates is a tough ask, what we do know is that under Pochettino, it’s not an impossible one.