Antonio Conte, the manager of Tottenham, has acknowledged that he will have to rest each of his stars at some point in the upcoming few weeks, including striker Harry Kane.
Spurs travel to Nottingham Forest on Sunday to begin a stretch of seven games before the end of September’s international break.
Tottenham will then play an additional 13 times from October through the start of the World Cup in mid-November.
Kane has frequently insisted on playing every game for Spurs that he is able to when healthy, but Conte has admitted that at some point over the next few months, all of his players will have to be taken out of the starting lineup.
“I repeat, we are talking about a situation that we have to start to face – on Sunday we have to play seven games every three days,” Conte said.
“After every game, I will have to check the situation with all of the players for tiredness and injuries. And one player will not be able to play in all seven games – it is impossible.
“I am not a magician! I cannot forecast this, but we go game by game to make the best decisions for the team and for the players.”
Although Tottenham have signed six players so far this summer, only one of them has made a season-opening appearance: Ivan Perisic, who made his full debut last Saturday against Wolves.
Conte previously claimed that this was done to capitalise on Spurs’ consistency from the latter part of last season, but the majority of his new additions are now qualified for the starting lineup.
“It’s positive for me to have players early because we can work with the new players and bring these players into our ideas,” he added.
“Richarlison, Clement Lenglet, Yves Bissouma, Ivan Perisic – they are ready to go into the team and to play. We will do it because it would be crazy to think we can play the same team every game in 23 days [21 days] with the same team.”
