SPURS FLUFF THEIR LINES
Pochettino yearns for green grass of home
IT’S hard for grass to grow beneath your feet when the pitch has been stomped bare and yet the restlessness continues for Mauricio Pochettino — a man who might just have stood in the same spot for too long.
If he sounded conflicted in his pre-match briefing on Friday, a manager aching for more and better, then he looked it here.
Waves, screams, pouts, punches of thin air — he went through all the fidgets of his sideline routine. Except this time we knew there was something bubbling inside because he has told us there is.
His worst feeling in four years at the club, was how he put it last week.
The cause was the stadium delay and all that goes with it, from these never- ending trips to Wembley right up to the budget
constriction that means Tottenham am do not ‘prioritise’ winning quite e like, say, Manchester City.
Jolting sentiments, yes. But who could blame him for being honest? Who would begrudge him the he occasional reflection about having to fight with one arm behind his back, year in and year out? The wonder is that he has landed so many big blows — fifth, third, second and thirdplaced finishes.
It is magnificent when balanced against balanced books.
But that’s the frustration. Premier League football isn’t best fought with balanced books. Look at City — their match-winner here cost £60million in a summer when Spurs didn’t spend a penny.
When will Tottenham be in a position to prioritise that kind of squad development? The only thing for certain is that gamechanging transfer funds won’t suddenly become available once they have their own home, whenever that may be.
Stadiums need to be paid off over long periods, so it is logical to wonder if a time is coming when Pochettino wants the advantages enjoyed by the other managers.
The worry for Spurs is that he is plainly good enough to go almost anywhere — Manchester United, Real Madrid? In time and the right circumstances they will surely come knocking.
Certainly, nothing has made Tottenham look more like a club in transition than this game, played out on a pitch ravaged by the weekend’s NFL fixture.
The NFL logo was clear in the centre circle, the playing area was scarred brown in three, pitch-long stripes. A right mess, just like the delay affecting the building of Tottenham’s new stadium. The whole saga, from the summer, when the moving deadline was missed, until now, has left Totenham feeling like couch-hoppers when they cought to be in a grand home of their own. uncomfortable, out of place, minding the cracks in the floor in this case, the divots.
There was also the sight on separate occasions of Moussa Sissoko and Erik Lamela chasing a bouncing, bobbling ball as if it was a giant cheese cascading down a hill in Gloucester.
No wonder City’s goal came from an Ederson punt downfield, no wonder Tottenham tried to ape the approach at times and ultimately failed.
And that has so often been their lot in these massive games.
For all Tottenham’s brilliance under Pochettino, they have never quite been able to get the better of the truly big teams.
Not regularly, anyway. Indeed, since Pochettino took charge in 2014, only Arsenal have accumulated fewer points in games between the established top-six sides than the 54 earned by Spurs.
The difference, quite blatantly, is spending power.
Without it, Pochettino has been exceptional. With it, he would quite possibly be a title winner. And so maybe the time will come when he does decide he has done all he can.
Gary Neville wasn’t alone last night in raising the thought.
‘He has always managed things well and pushed things away,’ said Neville on Sky Sports. ‘They are not spending the money — nowhere near the other top clubs.
‘ Pochettino is a fantastic manager but he has always wanted to go to the top, top European clubs and it feels to me as though he has gone as far as he can with Tottenham.’
Maybe he has, maybe he has not.
More credit to him that he hasn’t turned his frustration into something abrasive with those who employ him — he genuinely seems to admire the way the club has been run.
But Pochettino is ambitious. Extremely so. And for that reason, there will always be a risk that, stood on a muddy touchline, the grass might look greener elsewhere.