CASE DISMISSED
Poch: I’ve got NOTHING to prove in the Prem... same goes for Unai
MAURICIO POCHETTINO insists he and Unai Emery have NOTHING to prove in the Premier League.
The two men were sacked within just a few weeks of one another in 2019, by Tottenham and Arsenal respectively, after differing degrees of success.
Pochettino had reinvigorated Spurs and, with a focus on young talent playing an attractive brand of football, got them to a Champions League Final just months before he was axed.
Ultimately, he left with no silverware to show for his five years in charge, and the question his detractors now ask is when, or if, he will win something in England with Chelsea.
Emery, admittedly after a much shorter time, had failed to breathe new life into the Gunners after Arsene Wenger’s two-decade-plus reign came to an end. He left the Emirates empty-handed despite guiding Arsenal to the Europa League Final in 2019.
His next job was with Villarreal, whom he led to Europa League glory in 2021, a trophy he’d won three times before with Sevilla.
Poch went to Paris Saint-german and delivered three trophies – the Ligue 1 title, the Coupe de France and Trophee des Champions.
Now both men are back in England, with clubs whose owners have deep pockets – but both are also still in the building phase.
And Poch is adamant that if they complete the missions they have been given then it will be a bigger achievement than winning the French league with PSG, something Emery has also ticked off his to-do list.
Pochettino said: “It’s not about ‘proving’ anything for either of us. It’s about trying to help the clubs to achieve what they want.
“I never feel that we need to prove something.
“At Tottenham, it was, ‘Pochettino and his coaching staff need to prove they can win titles’. We arrived in Paris Saintgermain and in one year and a half we won three. We proved that we can win.
“But you can win with a team that normally wins when you are in a project ready to win.
“In this case, Emery and myself, we are building something.
“He is building a nice project in Aston Villa, we are starting to build a very nice project in the medium-to-long-term at Chelsea. Maybe some think, ‘They need to prove that they can still win’, but for us, it’s about helping and proving we can help clubs to reach a level.”
Asked if making a success of the projects at Chelsea or Villa would be bigger than winning the Ligue 1 title, he added: “It’s not easy to win with PSG or other clubs.
“We need to give credit to coaches and players who win with different teams. But of course if you say about the Premier League that it is the most important competition and the most competitive. If you can win here, the feeling is that the credit is bigger.”
Pochettino believes he is putting the building blocks in place to bring success back to Stamford Bridge.
He added: “In building, the steps are very little.
“Maybe from outside it is difficult to see the improvement but from inside, I can tell you things are going well – we are building a very strong structure and when that is in place, we will start getting the results.”