FA CUP FIFTH ROUND I’d like to have a drink with Poch but it won’t be a £450 bottle of wine. That is a week’s wages for my lads! KEITH HILL
KEITH HILL would love to share a drink with Mauricio Pochettino today but the Rochdale boss has warned that – win, lose or draw – he’ll only break open a beer.
After spending £500,000 laying a new Spotland pitch for the visit of Tottenham, the League One strugglers feel they’ve invested enough i n only their third appearance in the fifth round of the FA Cup in their 111-year history.
So Hill won’t be splashing out £450 on a vintage red – like Bristol City’s Lee Johnson did when Jose Mourinho took his Manchester United side to Ashton Gate to be knocked out of the League Cup in December. Not when some of his players don’t earn that in a week.
“Spending £450 on a bottle of wine isn’t really my style,” said the 48-year-old, who over two spells has managed Rochdale for 10 of the last 11 years that have been the most successful period of an existence spent living in the shadow of Manchester.
“I’d like to have a drink with Pochettino because I am a constant surveyor of his type of manager. I look at the way he does things.
“You can learn, not just by listening to him but by watching the way his team play, the respect his players have for him, and the way he conducts himself.
“But £450 on a bottle of wine? That’s a week’s wages for some of my lads. Of course, wages mean nothing when the whistle goes. It’s 11 players against 11 players.
“But afterwards, Mauricio is welcome to join me for a couple of bottles of beer and maybe a bit of food. The invitation is there, even though I know we could get comfortably beaten because Spurs are a top side.”
Rochdale booked their glamour fifth-round tie by beating Milwall 1-0 in the last round, Ian Henderson grabbing the only goal. But keeping a clean sheet against Spurs today will be much tougher.
“I don’t think it’ll be a cricket score, but I wouldn’t be embarrassed if we got smashed by Tottenham as l ong as we l earn from the experience,” Hill went on.
“There are always lessons to be learned.”
Hill, first appointed Rochdale boss in 2006 after a playing career that included spells at Spotland, Blackburn, Plymouth, Cheltenham, Morecambe and Wrexham, endured the agony of two play- off exits