THE FOOTBALL BOSS WHO DOESN’T LIKE QUESTIONS ABOUT FOOTBALL

JURGEN KLOPP was discussing the questioning he receives after matches. In England, he said, a manager deals with added ‘trivia’ as he called it — but there was more deference in the questions about football. He’s right. Klopp might get asked about heavy metal music or Maurizio Sarri about his smoking habit, because we like back stories and personalities, but even if Liverpool or Chelsea lose 5-0, the football conversations will be framed with respect. Klopp said that in Germany, defeat was often met with open hostility — ‘well that was rubbish, what are you going to do about it?’ — whereas in England an inquisitor will be polite, try to see a positive before asking, ever so gently, if you might just, possibly, have stuffed up? This brings us to Mauricio Pochettino, who seems a most unusual chap: a football manager who doesn’t like it if you ask him about football. He was very snappy, again, after the defeat by Inter Milan when asked if he regretted leaving Kieran Trippier and Toby Alderweireld at home, having lost to late goals. ‘Wow, what a question,’ he said. ‘Such an easy question, you know — an easy target. Easy to talk about the players that aren’t here like Hugo Lloris, Dele Alli or Moussa Sissoko.’ But nobody was talking about those players. They are injured. Only a lunatic would ask Pochettino (above) why he didn’t pick an injured goalkeeper at the San Siro. What the journalist had wanted to know was whether Pochettino thought in defeat he had made a mistake resting two key, fit, defenders. Except being English, not German, he did not challenge Pochettino that he had messed up — merely couched his question more politely as one about regret. Last season, after Tottenham defeated Arsenal 1-0 at Wembley, Pochettino was equally angry when asked why he had preferred Davinson Sanchez to Alderweireld. He seemed to take it as an insult — to himself, and his players. Actually, it was a sincere football inquiry about whether Sanchez’s inclusion was a smart reaction to Arsenal’s 5-1 win over Everton the previous week, and the pace threat of PierreEmerick Aubameyang. Arsenal had failed to score, remember. The question translated as: ‘Mauricio, how clever are you?’ Instead, he was still grumbling about it 10 minutes later. And that was after a good win. So now he is losing — well, you can imagine what a fortnight in Torremolinos that must be.