The Frenchman has struggled for game time at Tottenham since joining two years ago
Mauricio Pochettino has admitted to football.london that it has been difficult for Georges-Kevin Nkoudou to break into his Tottenham Hotspur team.
The 23-year-old French winger, who was on loan for the second half of last season at Burnley, has become something of a forgotten man at Spurs since joining in 2016 and was expected to leave the club over the summer.
However, that move never materialised and he was subsequently left out of the club's Champions League squad as Tottenham have too many foreign players.
The Frenchman, who impressed at times on the club's summer USA tour, is rarely spotted in training photos although Moussa Sissoko posted a video of him doing individual shooting practice on an Instagram story last week.
Despite Mauricio Pochettino making eight changes for the Carabao Cup match against Watford last week, Nkoudou was not included in the squad.
However, with a number of attacking midfield injuries for Saturday's Premier League game at Huddersfield, the winger was taken along with the squad at the weekend. Nkoudou and Kyle Walker-Peters were the 19th and 20th men in the squad, meaning they travelled in case of injury or illness to anyone in the 18 on the day of the match.
football.london asked Pochettino whether the Frenchman would be involved against Cardiff at the weekend.
"It's not easy. He's in the squad of 20 players for tomorrow, yes. I need to decide if he will be on the bench or not," he said.
When asked why Nkoudou had struggled to get himself into the team, the Spurs boss admitted he just hadn't taken his chances.
"Look, it's not easy when you have 25 players. Nearly all the players play. I think we are the team that gave more possibility to play to the whole squad," he said.
"Maybe for him it's a struggle to take the opportunity for different reasons, maybe perhaps because I prefer to play with another player and not that he's good or not good. But it's because I decide to play with different players than him."