SPURS DARING TO DREAM
Pochettino project can move them out of Arsenal’s shadow
MAURICIO Pochettino is in the unusual position of being one of the country’s most revered coaches but not the most eminent in his parish.
The South American is different to most of the Tottenham managers who have passed before him but also exactly the same. He is still in the slipstream, ever so slightly, of Arsene Wenger and Arsenal.
Tottenham travel to the Emirates Stadium tomorrow as the Premier League’s only unbeaten team. Just five goals conceded. Still they sit behind Arsenal, though.
Last season, Tottenham’s title tilt ended on a horrid Monday night at Chelsea. But worse was to come on the season’s final day. Newcastle 5 Tottenham 1. Down to third. Back behind Arsenal.
‘I still feel bad about that,’ said Pochettino yesterday. ‘It was so easy to be above Arsenal in that moment. It was difficult to not think about that in the summer.’
Pochettino is a modern football coach, particularly in the way he obsesses over the small details. As such, he is happy to talk broadly about the heartache of last season but long ago identified the reasons why his team fell short. For example, what happened on that ugly night at Chelsea is well referenced but Pochettino knows that his team’s decline began a week earlier, at home to West Bromwich.
Leading 1-0 with 15 minutes left, tiring goalkeeper Hugo Lloris delivered a long kick upfield rather than pass the ball short as he has learned to do under his manager. It came straight back into the Tottenham half, West Brom won a corner and, from it, they equalised.
‘We lost two points from a single mistake,’ said a source this week. ‘To Mauricio, these things are what make the difference.’
Lloris is much loved by Pochettino, a world-class goalkeeper who can use the ball on the floor. Seven years ago at Espanyol, the Tottenham manager was employing a style that used his goalkeeper as the trigger for everything. He still has the videos to prove it.
It is this football that he has brought to Tottenham. It is this football that he will ask his team to play at the Emirates as he seeks to break a six-game winless run that has followed last month’s stunning dismantling of Manchester City at White Hart Lane.
Another Premier League coach described it perfectly this week, saying: ‘There is not a fitter side in the league. That’s how it feels when you play them. They are so young and play with such intensity that your main hope early on is to stay in the game. If you fall behind and have to chase it, you’re struggling.
‘People talk about Klopp at Liverpool and Guardiola at City. Yeah, they will press and press you but Tottenham can do it just as well.’
Pochettino’s commitment to double training sessions and gym circuits is well-known. There are no excuses made for senior players and the training ground is the way into the 44-year-old’s team.
Harry Kane is known to be one of the most committed in this area and today, after an absence of 10 games with a thigh problem, the England forward is expected to start.
Tottenham have missed Kane, particularly given the way his understudy Vincent Janssen has struggled to impress. Within this lies one of Pochettino’s difficulties as he looks to move Tottenham forward.
Until the new stadium is built and ready for the start of the 2018-19 season, Tottenham will continue to compete for players on a level one below that of Arsenal and others near the top of the Premier League.
Tottenham’s record signing is £ 30million France midfielder Moussa Sissoko and their wage ceiling is around £85,000 a week. Having looked for a striker to complement Kane since the start of the year, interest in Antoine Griezmann and Alvaro Morata never got off the ground and, ultimately, Janssen was brought in from AZ Alkmaar for £17m.
Pochettino said yesterday: ‘Today the project is completely different to Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. Sometimes it is difficult to speak about that because our fans can take it in a negative way.
‘Maybe when we finish the stadium we must change the project and maybe it is a moment to sign a player and spend a lot of money. We are expecting to finish it in a year and a half and then start to compete with different tools and resources.’
Tottenham’s commitment to their ground project mirrors that of Arsenal several years ago. Only recently have the other North London club released the chains.
If it means the responsibility for success lies even more heavily on innovative coaching, clever recruitment and finely tuned player management, then Pochettino doesn’t mind too much.
His belief in young footballers is absolute. The average age of his first XI is 25 and when England played Wales at Euro 2016, six of the starting XI — Kane, Eric Dier, Dele Alli, Danny Rose, Kyle Walker and Liverpool’s Adam Lallana — had been introduced to international football while Pochettino was their club manager.
With Spurs’ young players housed in the same complex that boasts the club’s exceptional new training ground, Pochettino is a regular watcher of games at all age levels. For example, he was seen one recent Friday on the touchline as Tottenham’s Under 23s played Manchester United, only breaking off to conduct his weekly media briefing before returning for the final 10 minutes.
At Espanyol — where he coached between 2009 and 2012 — Pochettino brought 20 players through the academy to the first team. Tomorrow, with Sissoko suspended and Erik Lamela and Moussa Dembele injured — he may hand Harry Winks, 20, his first Premier League start.
Meanwhile, 20- year- old Alli recently told beIN Sports’ excellent To Dare Is To Do documentary about Spurs: ‘When I came to the club I hoped to maybe get to double figures in appearances by the end of the season.’ Alli started 28 games.
Progress for Tottenham under Pochettino last season, and indeed the one before, was clear. Players such as Rose emerged from the sidelines to become regular international footballers while Dier has touched on one of the fundamentals of life under the former Argentina defender.
‘If you can handle one of his training sessions, you can handle anything,’ Dier told beIN Sports. ‘He is ruthless with us. But we do what we have to do to become a great team.’
Compared often to his mentor Marcelo Bielsa, insiders say Pochettino is actually quite different. He is, for example, much more sociable and empathetic than the former Argentina manager as well as having an idiosyncratic sense of humour. One day last season, for example, Pochettino called Rose into his office and told him he wished to sell him. ‘ I was gutted,’ recalled Rose, only to learn that the real point of the meeting was for his manager to tell him he had won his first England callup. ‘ I just thanked him for getting me into such fantastic shape,’ Rose added. ‘I will be eternally grateful.’ This season has not been without challenges, despite the unbeaten league record. Club insiders say that Victor Wanyama was signed to bring some extra muscle to the centre of
Pochettino’s midfield, whilehile Sissoko was brought in after thehe club’s research revealed himm not to be the troublesomee character many believed him to be at Newcastle.
Some have questioned the balance of the team, though. Dier has not lifted his game as some had hoped on the arrival of competition for his position, while the problem of f finding goals when Kane does s not play is still to be solved.
‘Maybe it’s because we are not building in a very good way from the back and the ball arrives in the last third in a different condition,’dition ’ was Pochettino’s take on that issue yesterday.
‘When you win you are on the top of your emotion and mental level. This is a good test for us to changecha the dynamic. It’s a period wherewh I have to learn to improve. It doesn’t scare me.’ Without question, the highlightl of the season so far was the 2-0 defeat of Pep Guardiola’s City. Tottenham were magnificent that day and some viewed the performance as a window into the future. Pochettino is known to privatelyva dismiss the suggestion thattha Guardiola reinvented the wheelwhee by implementing the ‘high press’ at Barcelona. He himself played it with substantially less talented players at Espanyol. Pochettino also thinks Guardiola may have his work cut out to succeed in the Premier League and if we presume he took some satisfaction from the way his team beat City then we won’t be far wrong.
Contracted until 2021, everything would appear to be in place for Pochettino to build soundly on what he has started. It is sobering to think what may have happened had Louis van Gaal not gone back on a commitment to join Tottenham in 2014, choosing Manchester United instead. Another candidate from that period, Frank de Boer, was sacked by Inter Milan this week.
As for Pochettino’s players, their belief is absolute.
‘The future is ours for the taking,’ said Kane recently.
Brave words from Tottenham’s returning striker. For now, a victory at Arsenal would be a start.