After Serge Aurier’s red card at West Ham, Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino has to decide between the erratic Ivorian or steady Kieran Trippier.
Mauricio Pochettino, manager of Tottenham Hotspur, celebrates victory after the Premier League match against West Ham United.
Tottenham Hotspur almost let a three-goal lead slip at the weekend as they eventually beat West Ham United 3-2 in the Premier League.
It was a scenario not helped by a silly red card for Serge Aurier for two bookable offences, the second a ridiculous lunge on Andy Carroll to receive his marching orders with 20 minutes still left to play at the London Stadium.
Serge Aurier of Tottenham is dismissed during the Premier League match against West Ham United.
In only Aurier’s third game for his new club following a £23m (BBC) summer move from Paris Saint-Germain, Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino got to see first hand why the right-back had earned himself a bad boy reputation in France.
It also leaves Pochettino with something of a selection quandary now. Aurier will be available for the Champions League clash at Apoel Nicosia this evening (September 26) and will then serve his one-match suspension in English domestic football against Huddersfield Town at the weekend.
Yet does Pochettino begin to rely on Aurier as his first choice on the right side of defence, or revert to the arguably more dependable Kieran Trippier?
Swansea City’s Kyle Naughton (L) vies with Tottenham Hotspur defender Kieran Trippier during the English Premier League football match.
The problem is, while many thought Trippier could fill the void left by Kyle Walker’s departure to Manchester City in July, it now seems that the 27-year-old lacks the athleticism to be quite such an attacking threat. Essentially the England international is a solid, but unremarkable, player that can be relied upon for a 6/10 each game but rarely more.
Aurier is different and much more in the mould of Walker with his ability to break forward with pace and skill, but also with a defensive error in him every now and again – just watch his dummy header against Borussia Dortmund to see how the 24-year-old likes to live on the edge at the back.
When on form the Ivory Coast international is a much more exciting prospect than Trippier, but by playing him Pochettino also runs the risk of what was seen on Saturday; which was incidentally the first league dismissal under the Argentine since Vlad Chiriches in May, 2015.
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