INTER MOOLAN
Poch backs ‘sacred cow’ Kane to end Spurs drought & milk it against Italians
MAURICIO POCHETTINO has called on every Tottenham fan to thank Harry Kane instead of fretting over when he will score next.
The Spurs boss has also used a cow analogy to inspire fans concerned that another tough Champions League group could represent a bridge too far this season.
With Inter Milan tonight and both Barcelona and PSV Eindhoven to come, Pochettino wants his side to invoke a new Tottenham motto – To Dairy Is To Do – and learn from their mistakes over the past two seasons.
He said: “Our experience is experience, but you need to apply the experience, hunger, your own motivation, being clever and learning. If you are not clever this is only experience. It is not going to help you in the future.
“Experience is like a cow who sees a train every day for 10 years crossing in front of her, and if you ask the cow when the train is coming she’s not going to answer.
“Many things in football are so important. We use too much talk of, ‘The experience is going to help next season’.
“Yes, of course, if you show the same hunger, the same own motivation, if you fight in the same way. But with experience, you don’t win games.”
This time last year, Kane’s brace against Borussia Dortmund kicked off a Champions League ride for Spurs which saw them progress from a group which also contained Real Madrid and Apoel Nicosia. The north Londoners went on to reach the round of 16. Pochettino – unperturbed by Kane’s blank in his last two Premier League games – said Spurs fans should cherish their England captain as he bids to get them started again. “Harry is a target,” he added. “It’s easy when he doesn’t score to talk about him. But Harry after four years at the club there is a lot to thank him for. “He needs to improve but the team needs to improve. It’s easy to blame Harry, he’s up front and the team needs goals. It’s easy to talk and analyse and it’s easy to talk about the perception and reality.
“Every single fan in the last four years, every team-mate needs to say thank you.
“When you see what he has provided for the team in the last four years it is so difficult to complain that he is not scoring goals and the team lost the last two games.”
Kane has won two Premier League Golden Boots and was narrowly beaten to last season’s award by Liverpool forward Mo Salah.
Kane went on instead to defy expectations in Russia by claiming the World Cup Golden Boot.
Yet he is still coming under the microscope with concerns that his 62 games since the start of last season are starting to take their toll on his form.
Team-mate Christian Eriksen, however, is adamant that none of the Spurs squad are feeling the heat.
“No we are not tired after the World Cup,” said the midfielder, who reached the last 16 with Denmark.
“Everyone has near enough had the same break.
“We are unfortunate as a club as we had so many players going so far in the tournament which meant they started their pre-season later than other players.
“But our performances have had nothing to do with tiredness. Other clubs are in the same situation. And personally I haven’t felt tired.
“Every players feels he is fit and ready to go – 100 per cent on it.”