Gedson, Gazzaniga left out of Tottenham’s Europa League squad, but Jack Clarke included

Tottenham Hotspur officially submitted their squad of players who are eligible to participate in the Europa League group stages to UEFA, and unsurprisingly there are a few players who Spurs were forced to leave at home.

Spurs could name a list of 25 first team players maximum, but that list also had to include a minimum of 8 “association trained” players, defined as players who had been trained by clubs from the same federation for a minimum of two years before their 21st birthday. Tottenham can also name a “List B” that consists of players who are 21 or younger and have trained at their current club for a minimum of two seasons; players on this list can be added to Europa League matchday squads with only 24 hours of notice.

Spurs have a couple of weird wrinkles in their squad, specifically Eric Dier, Ben Davies, and Matt Doherty not qualifying as “association trained” for purposes of European competition. (Dier, despite being English, was trained as a youth in Sporting’s academy in Portugal; Welshman Davies is not counted due to a technicality over when the Welsh league was included in the English FA, and Irish international Doherty missed the three year requirement by a matter of months after joining Wolves.)

Because of that, Spurs were over their maximum foreign player limit by two players, and opted to leave third-choice goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga and on-loan midfielder Gedson Fernandes off of their Europa League squad. Danny Rose was also left off the Europa League list.

Interestingly, Jose Mourinho decided to bring in 19-year old attacking midfielder Jack Clarke into the side. Despite being English and young, he hasn’t been at Spurs for two years, so he is not eligible to be on List B. Mourinho is reportedly very impressed with Clarke and this is a reward for his effort on the training pitch.

Leaving Gazzaniga and Gedson out of the Europa League squad is harsh, but perhaps more so for Gedson. It’s difficult to see where he will get minutes this season if he can’t play in the early round cup matches, since he’s pretty far back on the Premier League depth chart in midfield. Gazzaniga, meanwhile, was tipped to join Everton before the transfer window closed, but that move never materialized. He may yet decide to leave the club to join a Championship team before the EFL window closes, if he wants to be assured of game time.

Here’s a full list of Tottenham’s Europa League squad, as stated on UEFA’s website.

List A

• Toby Alderweireld
• Dele Alli
• Serge Aurier
• Gareth Bale
• Steven Bergwijn
• Cameron Carter-Vickers
• Jack Clarke
• Ben Davies
• Eric Dier
• Matt Doherty
• Joe Hart
• Pierre-Emile Højbjerg
• Harry Kane
• Erik Lamela
• Hugo Lloris
• Giovani Lo Celso
• Lucas Moura
• Tanguy Ndombele
• Sergio Reguilon
• Davinson Sanchez
• Moussa Sissoko
• Son Heung-Min
• Carlos Vinicius
• Alfie Whiteman
• Harry Winks

List B

• Brandon Austin
• J’Neil Bennett
• Jamie Bowden
• Dennis Cirkin
• Jonathan Die Bie
• Malachi Fagan-Walcott
• Brooklyn Lyons-Foster
• Dilan Markanday
• Jeremie Mukendi
• Jubril Okedina
• Joshua Oluwayemi
• Maurizio Pochettino
• Rodel Richards
• Jack Roles
• Dane Scarlett
• Japhet Tanganga
• Elliot Thorpe
• Harvey White