Tottenham's starting back 5 (Vic; Porro; Cuti; VDV; Udogie) returned to selection availability on Thursday 6th March, 2025 when we played AZ Alkmaar away. VDV and Romero were unused subs and Porro came off the bench in a 1-0 loss (which was to be our last loss in Europe fwiw)
In the following 3 months of football, that Back 5 would
never once start a Premier league game together.
In fact Romero and VDV would only start TWO premier league games together as a partnership for the rest of the league season despite being fit and available for all of them (those two games were Chelsea away and Forest at home in which both were subbed at half time!).
However:
That Back 5 would start every single remaining European game except the first one (AZ at home where Spence started for Udogie). Every single game on the way to Bilbao.
We played Danso and Davies regularly in the league with Romero and VDV on the bench.
If you can't see that this was a deliberate selection policy to give Tottenham Hotspur the best possible chance of progressing through the Europa League
even at the expense of league position then I don't know what to tell you.
And we won. I can't guarantee you that. I was there.
You may not approve of the selection policy. You may not approve of prioritising the Trophy over Wolves away or Liverpool away (where we started Spence, Danso, Davies with Romero, VDV and Porro unused subs in a 5-1 thrashing) - but to deny it actually happened is quite bizarre.