Nobody’s sure why Sergio Reguilon is on Tottenham’s plane to Hungary

It’s the day before a Europa League away match in Hungary, so that means it’s time for Tottenham Hotspur to do some fun social media postings ahead of tomorrow’s match against Ferencvaros. That often means the traditional Players Getting On the Plane social video, and in this we were not disappointed today.

These are often fun because it gives us a chance to see who’s physically on the plane and allows us to speculate on what tomorrow’s lineup will be. And we get some nice shots of players boarding the plane including James Maddison, Pedro Porro, Sergio Reguilon, Dejan Kulusevski, Mikey Moore, Micky van de Ven, and…

Wait a minute. Pan right and pull back. Stop. Enhance 34 to 46. Pull back. Go right, stop. Enhance 57 to 19. Track 45 left. Stop. Enhance 15 to 23.

What the crap?! What’s Reggie doing there?

The truth is we don’t know, but that didn’t stop certain Too Online™ Spurs fans from having a right proper meltdown about Reguilon joining the squad for a Europa League away fixture. It wasn’t helped after a popular Twitter aggregator (which I will not link to) speculated that the reason Reggie was there is because he’s taken the spot of Wilson Odobert who is also (also unconfirmed) out for a longer period of time than first reported. This has made those fans Extremely Mad™ because they assumed Reggie’s inclusion comes at the “expence” (pun very much intended) — again — of Djed Spence.

But here’s the thing — Spurs can’t do that, even if they wanted to. The club has already submitted their List A roster for the group round of the Europa League and they can’t adjust that for any reason (other than a catastrophic virus that only targets club keepers) unless and until Spurs qualify for the next round of the competition.

Now, a lot of hay was made about Rule 31.10 which seems to provide a means for teams to replace an injured player with another one, but note that it specifies that this is for the QUALIFYING and PLAY-OFF phases, and we’re now past that. This is the group phase. So no, this doesn’t apply; Spurs can’t just willy-nilly register a replacement for an injured player, because if they could, every single football club in European competition would’ve done that already.

And even if they could, Odobert is (supposedly, unconfirmed) out until November, which means he could participate in the group phase matches that take place in December, 2024 and January, 2025.

The whole thing is stupid and precipitated by an account speculating on rules that do not apply to the situation, and I feel acutely dumber for having to write an article about it.

But, let’s get back to the real issue — what the hell is Reggie doing there? Well, it’s not clear, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? Maybe Ange Postecoglou is trying to reintegrate Reggie into the first team, since his expected transfer didn’t pan out this summer. Maybe he’s filling the Djed Spence role as “speedy fast fullback guy” in training, and Djed’s being left home because a) he’s not in the squad and b) he’s being rested for a possible role in Sunday’s match at Brighton. Maybe he’s there to help unload the plane and get Big Ange a coffee now and then. Maybe he’s just there for the vibes.

Who knows! But I can tell you one thing, he’s not there because he’s taken Wilson Odobert’s place — or Djed Spence’s place — in Spurs’ Europa League side.