Poch has basically said Lucas won't feature. Some kind of odd comments, but seems like he's just trying to lower expectations a little:
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...ikely-to-make-his-debut-against-a3756716.html Lucas Moura is unlikely to make his
Tottenham debut at
Liverpool on Sunday as
Mauricio Pochettino delivered a downbeat assessment of his £24.5million signing.
Pochettino does not believe Lucas, who was in Paris on Friday attending to personal matters, is yet fit enough to compete for a spot in his starting XI and discouraged supporters from becoming too excited about what he may produce. Lucas has not started a senior game for Paris St Germain this term
Asked whether Moura’s arrival was ‘exciting’ for Spurs, the manager replied: “Exciting, no. We sign a player who was not playing at Paris St Germain and who has not competed in the last six or seven months.
“Lucas Moura is an exciting name for our fans and he came from a big club like PSG but it is different from signing Neymar, Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. My expectation is that the player can help us in the next three months but we cannot put too much pressure on him. He needs to adapt.
“He needs to get to know the players, the league, a new philosophy, a new team. There are plenty of examples of players who needed time here – Heung-min Son, Erik Lamela, Moussa Sissoko. Many players with a lot of quality struggle for six months, a year, to adapt to a team, a club, a league.
“We don’t want to create too many expectations. Then, if Lucas is amazing, scores a lot of goals and we achieve everything we want, fantastic. But if he doesn’t play well from the beginning it doesn’t mean this is a mistake. We have to be calm about what we expect.”
Pochettino also gave an intriguing answer when asked about
Juan Foyth’s omission from the Champions League squad for the rest of the season – essentially to accommodate Lucas, under Uefa home-grown player rules.
Foyth has made only five appearances but Pochettino said it was “very painful” to leave the 20-year-old centre-back out and called it “a club decision”.
“It is not only my decision,” he said. “The chairman and the administration, the chief scout. It was a club decision. We don’t have space for everyone in the list.
“Lucas was an opportunity on the last day of the transfer window and we knew if you bring in a player on the last day, we wouldn’t have the space for some players. It’s very painful but when we signed Juan it was as a potential top player for the future.
“He is going to play in the FA Cup and different games and we are so happy with his evolution. It is not a big deal, of course he understands – but for me it is very painful because that situation (Lucas) happened and it looks like we don’t have a plan. But we are a club who signs ‘opportunities’.
“It was a great opportunity for us but in the same way we needed to take a very painful decision.”
