POCH WON’T PLAY THE IMITATION GAME
Chelsea boss is his own man... and will never be copycat boss
MAURICIO POCHETTINO loves the beautiful game that most Premier League teams try to play.
Which is not surprising, given the football philosophy he brought to Southampton and Tottenham, and is now implementing at Chelsea.
But he also admits the fact that so many managers are trying to copy the playbooks of Johan Cruyff or Marcelo Bielsa (below) means that some of the identity of the British game is seeping away.
Like Pochettino, new Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola played under Bielsa – Pochettino at Newell’s Old Boys in his native Argentina and Iraola at Athletic Bilbao.
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola studied Bielsa’s methods, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta served as Guardiola’s No.2 at the Etihad, and Burnley manager Vincent Kompany spent his final years as a player under Guardiola.
Even Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou has already joked about “copying Pep, mate”, when asked about a tactical decision this season.
Pochettino said: “It’s true that the Premier League is different now than it was when we arrived at Southampton.
“Has it improved? Yes, every season, because the potential for the Premier League to sign players from everywhere makes the teams stronger.
“But it’s true that it has lost a little bit of the identity of British football – or English football – and, being honest, I like it, of course, because, as a coaching staff, we love to play in this way, but the league was more attractive in the past.
“English football – British football – was always about fight and different things and to play football in different ways was also to play well.
“Losing this type of identity makes me a little bit sad because football was always different in England.”
Just like the British game, Chelsea are evolving and, after an inconsistent start following another raft of signings, Pochettino has pointed out that even the greats of the game can take some time to settle. He added: “When you arrive at Chelsea as a player or coaching staff, what do people expect? To win, to win trophies and to perform and to score.
“But now we have a squad that is young and some players who are, of course, a big investment for the club.
“We need to know they are young, they need to adapt and the circumstances from which they came.
“It’s not fair to assess, ‘OK, one game, two games, three games, they’re not performing and we paid money and they need to perform like this’.
“I always use the same example – Real Madrid paid around £70million for one player, the name was Zinedine Zidane, an amazing player. After six months, you could ask the fans, ‘What have we bought?’. He started to perform after seven, eight months. Zidane was 26 or 27 and when you bring in a player of 18, 19, 20, 21, be careful, they are not machines.
“They need to settle in the circumstances that have happened in last few months — we need to give time.
“One thing is bad feelings because of results and another is the process, and we’re in a good way. “We need to recover all the injured players and then we will be very competitive and very tough to play against.”