Mauricio Pochettino says that only the biggest trophies matter to Tottenham ahead of EFL Cup clash

Tottenham’s League Cup campaign begins at Wembley against Championship strugglers Barnsley tonight and their best hope of winning the competition is more home draws against lower-League opposition.

Some managers, like Manchester United’s Jose Mourinho, believe there is value in winning the League Cup, but for Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino it is a distraction from the real prizes.

“The project at Tottenham is to try to win the Premier League or the Champions League, the two big trophies,” Pochettino said. “If we try to win the League Cup and forget the Premier League or Champions League, it’s a big mistake.”

Spurs have not won a trophy since 2008 but, for Pochettino, there is less prestige in winning a domestic cup because luck of the draw is so decisive, and he does not regard the run to 2015 League Cup Final, where Spurs lost 2-0 to Mourinho’s Chelsea, as a significant achievement.

“It was a good experience but if you review again how we arrived to play the final against Chelsea, the semi‑final was against Sheffield United, the quarter-final was against Newcastle and before it was Brighton and Nottingham Forest,” Pochettino said. Since then, weakened Spurs teams have lost in the early rounds of the League Cup to Arsenal and Liverpool, both top-six rivals with stronger squads, and the side beaten last season at Anfield included Tom Carroll, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Kevin Wimmer, Josh Onomah and Vincent Janssen, who are all playing elsewhere now.

Pochettino will rotate again for tonight’s visit of Barnsley, with 17‑year-old midfielder Tashan Oakley-Boothe and summer signing Juan Foyth, 19, set for debuts and Fernando Llorente, Michel Vorm, Georges-Kevin Nkoudou, Dele Alli, Harry Winks and Moussa Sissoko all expected to start.

Spurs should have enough to beat Barnsley, who are 20th in the Championship, but Pochettino will not alter his approach if Spurs progress and they are likely to fall short again against a Premier League rival with more serious designs on winning the competition.

After three seasons at the club, Pochettino hopes that his squad are now strong enough to win a domestic cup regardless of the opposition but he is not particularly optimistic.

He said: “Maybe we have more strength but we’ll see what happens. Maybe, in theory, but now we need to build a very strong team with a strong mentality and very good dynamic. We need to see how we manage everything now.”