LONDON -- Tottenham Hotspur play seven matches in 23 days starting with Saturday's visit to West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League and manager Mauricio Pochettino says he is facing a difficult juggling act to manage his squad between international breaks.
On Monday, Spurs fly to Germany for Tuesday's Champions League game against Bayer Leverkusen before the league resumes at Bournemouth on Saturday. Three days later they face Liverpool in the EFL Cup in a fourth consecutive away game ahead of home fixtures against Bayer and Leicester City.
The run finishes with the North London derby at Arsenal on Nov. 6. And Pochettino, whose mantra was "one game at a time" for most of last season, says he is looking way beyond the Hawthorns.
"We know Saturday is a very important game but in the same way we have many, many issues or ideas in our head," Pochettino explained.
"Because it's not that we have one game ahead against West Bromwich and we need the three points and then it's end of the season. We have seven games in 22 days and after international duty, the players that played a lot or come from injury, like Danny Rose and Eric Dier, or [Erik] Lamela that arrived yesterday, or Son [Heung-Min] from Asia.
"We need to be clever in how we prepare the game and the decisions that we'll take to be ready to compete in Germany, Bournemouth, Liverpool ... seven games.
"If Manchester City was the first game in a run of seven and you compete [again] after three days, [that's] fantastic because that is a big, big boost. But it was at the end. And then the players go away. And now they come, like Christian [Eriksen] is coming back very disappointed with the last result, or the England players. And now our job is to be more than coaches, it's to be psychologists too."
Dier and Rose both featured for England despite recently returning from injury, while Lamela returned from Argentina on Wednesday. South Korea's Son played in Seoul and Tehran during the international break and Eriksen needs a pick-me-up after Denmark's defeat to Montenegro.
Pochettino rarely asks his full-backs to play three times in a week, so he is likely to rest Rose and Kyle Walker on Saturday or Tuesday, and Mousa Dembele is not expected to be fit for either match after suffering a foot injury. Harry Kane is still out.
"We need to manage and handle all the players," Pochettino continued. "We are working very hard to be right for Saturday, to take the best decisions and not risk losing any players for the next six games.
"The problem is that we have 16 or 17 players away for two weeks and to put it all together now is a very complicated job.
"If you play one game every week -- if we play West Brom and then after seven days we play against Bournemouth -- it's not a big issue. The problem is how you manage Germany, Bournemouth, Liverpool ... It is very difficult.
"For the players we had here for two weeks, it was easy because they were under our control and they followed our habit. But the players that were in Argentina and played two 90-minute games, or were with the national team and did not play, they arrive now at a different level with different things -- tiredness because sometimes they haven't been able to go to sleep.
"You always need a few days to settle and put it all together and for that Saturday will be a very tough game. It is a very important game and it is not easy to take the decisions because it is not only that we must win but we must also be ready to compete in every game."
Tottenham twice drew 1-1 with West Brom last season and the second meeting at White Hart Lane left Spurs trailing leaders, and eventual champions, Leicester by seven points with three matches remaining.
Spurs' hopes of a first league title since 1961 ended the following week in a bad-tempered 2-2 draw at Chelsea, before they finished the season with a humiliating 5-1 defeat to relegated Newcastle, but Pochettino says the draw with the Baggies was significant.
"It was key that game against West Bromwich -- not Chelsea or Newcastle after. If you have time to see [again] the first half, you can realise how the team played. After 45 minutes we created many chances and if we finished the first half at 4-0 or 5-0, that is normal. That is what we need to improve -- to be more clinical when we create more chances and then in the second half we'd have control.
"But in one action, a set piece, we concede the goal and it is 1-1 and it killed 80 or 90 percent of the possibility to be champions or fight until the end with Leicester. And then Chelsea was another story. It was tough but we were much better than West Bromwich but that was in the past, now we are in the present and it will be very tough. In the same way as Manchester City -- all the games in the Premier League are very difficult."