How a trusting Mauricio helped me do wonders
Harry Winks will never forget the first moment he met Mauricio Pochettino. It was July 2014 and Winks, aged 18, was signing his first professional deal at White Hart Lane. He was with his father Gary, his agent, Tottenham academy chief John McDermott and football secretary Rebecca Britain. Then Pochettino walked in.
“He came in and shook my hand,” Winks tells the story. “And he said, and I don’t know if he was being truthful or not, ‘ I have seen your videos, and I told John to sign you up straightaway.’ I was gobsmacked at the gaffer just saying that.”
Two and a half years on and Winks is a regular part of Pochettino’s first team, providing more balance and control in midfield than anyone else. He will make eighth senior start on Saturday, against Wycombe Wanderers in the FA Cup. The further Spurs’ three-front season progresses, the more chances Winks will get.
It is a vindication for 15 years of effort from Winks and also of Pochettino’s own work to bring him through. They say at Tottenham that Pochettino has a plan for every player, but does not always tell the player exactly what that plan is. McDermott, whose academy prepares youngsters for the first team, is the conduit between Pochettino and the youngsters. Winks just had to trust his manager that he would end up in the Spurs first team, where he had wanted to be since his dad took him to White Hart Lane at the age of six.
Just because Winks’ emergence has been so long in the making does not mean that it was inevitable. There were moments last season, when Winks was training with the first team but never playing for them, when he felt anxious about his future and lack of games. He was left wondering whether Pochettino did in fact have the right idea for him.
“It was very stressful, I’ll be honest,” Winks says, in the first major interview of his career. “I had a whole season just in the squad, travelling, being left out, travelling, being left out, and it was difficult. The manager knew that, it was part of his plan, and you’ve got to be patient.”
Winks’ first three Spurs appearances were against Partizan Belgrade, FK Qarabag and Fiorentina, for a combined total of 20 minutes. “You come up to 20 years old and you’ve only played three times,” he says. “You see other boys who are playing regularly in the Premier League or in the Championship. And you’re thinking ‘I’ve only played three times, no starts, they’ve all been five minutes here and there.’
Most young players in Winks’ position would go on loan to play. But Pochettino would not allow it. He does not like other coaches getting their hands on his youngsters. He wants to improve them himself.
“[Pochettino] always told John [McDermott] that I would be in the first-team squad, training regularly,” Winks says. Again, McDermott and Winks’ agent were the go-betweens. “The manager never spoke to me directly about it, he would never pull me in. He would just let me get on with it, working hard every day. There was never a direct thing from the manager.”
Winks had to take it on trust what Pochettino wanted for him. “The manager wanted me in and around it, moulding me with the first team, getting into his way of thinking,” he says, with remarkable candour and perspective about what was not an easy time for him. “A loan got mentioned once but he said ‘no, he’s not going’. I knew the fact that manager didn’t loan me out was a massive sign I was in his plans. But at the same time, I just wanted to play matches. So do I annoy the manager and try and push for a loan? Or do I just keep working hard and trust him?”
That was the dilemma, that trade-off between development and playing time, that Winks faced at the end of last season. He did not want this year to be like last one. He knew that if he wanted a loan there were plenty of teams, in the Championship and abroad, who would take him. Brighton wanted him and it is not hard to envisage him being very successful there.
But Winks only ever wanted to play for Spurs. When he sat down with his dad and agent at the end of last season, that was the only goal they discussed. He did not want to push for a loan. He wanted to believe in Pochettino. Which meant giving it one big push last summer. “It was all or nothing,” Winks looks back. “My mindset was ‘forget about the loan, push to play for Tottenham.’ I was going to give it all in pre-season. If it works, it works.”