Mauricio Pochettino - "I am not a person in football whose motivation is only himself"

I won't miss his mad Glaswegian whisper, I know that much.

 

It's encouraging for you that he feels this way now.
If he believes he can win things at Spurs, he presently has no reason to leave unless he would be tempted by a huge salary being offered by a major club - but he implies that he isn't motivated by money for himself.
What might change his outlook would be one or more of the usual factors, which can make any manager disgruntled and see things differently:
- the club selling one or more of his best players against his wishes
- the club not backing him with sufficient funds when he feels he needs to strengthen the team/squad
- not achieving the success he expects/desires
Having assembled a team capable of challenging for honours, he's riding the crest of a wave, but it can all be easily undermined.
He needs Levy to back him completely, especially if/when greedy players want higher wages. This is an issue, like it or not. Walker had his head turned, Rose has made noises about pay, Alli has been reported to have claimed that his earnings should be tripled.....
Those teams who have won the title in the past 20' years have had to reward all their leading players with top salaries to keep them together. Leicester apart, those clubs have been able to do so, but even then teams have broken up. Only SAF has been able to replace players, rebuild and still keep on winning - although sometimes he had teams punching above their weight.
Neither the players nor Pochettino will stay content if this is another trophyless season and a second or third placed finish in the PL. Even if money isn't the motivating factor, there needs to be tangible success for everyone to stay motivated, committed to the club and ready to compete again next season together. If you believe differently, you're Harry Redknapp - and if you're happy to pat yourself on the back for getting a CL place because it's more than Spurs should expect, then that will be the height of any achievement. This manager and these players must see coming close as failure now. Or stagnation, at least.
So I hope for Spurs fans that Pochettino wins something this season, keeps Levy and his players totally committed and on board and remains motivated by what he's achieving. Otherwise, it might be a different interview in 12 months time.

 

Sorry Luke, but you're wrong and using a load of spurious what-ifs to support your position.
There is absolutely no suggestion that Levy will not back Poch and equally no suggestion that Poch feels unsupported. Certainly there's no way any players are leaving unless as in the case of Walker, their course had been run at Spurs. That may change, but every indication is that the relationship is strong.
This season isn't about having to win sonething - it's about at least continuing to compete and still being in the mix at the top at the end of this season and launching the new WHL next year from a position of strength.

Would be great to win something, don't get me wrong, but we're logically left with the FAC as a realistic option unless Citeh meltdown.

A top 3 finish and perhaps a final would be a good outcome for a year 'away from home' IMHO.

 

I'm saying he needs this perfect storm to continue.
For that to happen, you need to win honours very soon.
You could win the CL this season!
I don't believe that players are loyal as you would like them to be.

 

A bit simplistic, Luke. Looking at Mauricio Pochettino's history shows that playing staff are much less important than would be the case with most managers.

He makes the players successful not the other way round, like Cloughie. Would any other manager be able to turn Ben Davies and Kieran Trippier into Real Madrid beating full backs, just as he did with Kyle Walker and Danny Rose.........and Luke Shaw and Nathaniel Clyne?

Give Mauricio Pochettino a talented footballer and he'll turn him into a far better one. The departure of players is a given in Spurs' future. Rose will leave this summer, I'm convinced of it. Equally, I expect us to sign Ryan Sessegnon and for him to go on and be an even better player. I think we'll probably sell Toby Alderweireld.........and..........but most players are on long contracts and we control when they go. We"ll get top dollar for them as they go and will have replacements identified to replace them. Also, there's a lot of talent coming through the Academy that Mauricio Pochettino will get the most out of and we will continue to pick up top young talent like the young Ajax pair, Kluivert and Van Der Beek, who we are very keen on.

Mauricio Pochettino must know this is coming. In a few years, we'll be closer to being able to compete on wages. In the meantime, departures are inevitable and will have been built into the plans over the next few years. The relationship between Daniel Levy and Mauricio Pochettino is very tight. Levy's not going to pull something unexpected on him. If a player needs to go, THEY will decide who, when and how and do it together.

Nothing lasts forever. Mauricio Pochettino will leave Spurs but when he does, it will be a very different looking club from the one he joined and the one he manages now. He is taking us to be a club that can compete he sustain a place at the top of the table. The future's white......

 

You sound like a Southampton supporter of a few years back

 

I fancy a little wager..........are you man enough for more than words?

All for charity, of course.

 

Your ignorance is strong on this topic, huh?

Levy and Pochettino are on the same page. Pochettino has said he'd like to stay at Spurs for 15 more years, it's up to Levy.

Obviously, if Levy goes (like the Southampton man with whom Pochettino was on the same page with), or changes his tune, then yes, Pochettino will probably leave.

Right now, the boat is not rocking. Except only in the minds of wishful and scared rival fans and pundits.

Manchester United, and Arsenal are not the only teams capable of building a legacy with relatively stable management over years.

It's taken us forever to get here but Levy is building ours now with Pochettino as a believer.

Nobody questioned SAF's loyalty to Manchester United. Now you wanna question Pochettino's loyalty to Spurs?

As if we can't have nice things too.

 

One of the details that many ignore is that Pochettino is a businessman. He works with the numbers in the same way that Arsene Wenger does. I believe he's qualified as a business manager. So, he and Levy see eye to eye on many things that Redknapp wouldn't for example.

He knowns that the time to complete with other clubs on wages is when the income competes with other clubs incomes. He and Levy work together to make the numbers look right each season even if it means somewhat replaceable valuable assets, like Walker, get moved on.

All of these pundits talking about how the sky is falling down, and that Pochettino and players will leave, ignore the fact that the new stadium is being build, in big part, to address the income issue.

Despite us not being there yet, we are punching above our weight. I've just seen that we have the second most valuable squad in the world.

Soon, the stadium will be built. Shortly after that, wages will go up.

I still feel that many will still talk about how the wheels might come off and find other reasons, just because, it's Spurs, and we can't have them upsetting the status quo of the teams we call 'big' teams.

 

Indeed.

As I repeatedly say, the fear (call a spade a spade : it is precisely that)
is that given Spurs can sustainably get to the CURRENT level on the
CURRENT resources, what is going to happen when the new WHL
revenue streams come online ??

 

We start paying astronomical wages to lazy mercenaries and let their contracts run down to their final year?

No, wait, that's the other lot...

 

I feel I have represented myself badly on here, at no point have I said I think Poch will leave you.
Indeed I agree fully with the poster that pointed out there would be few places to attract him, any club in England would be a sideways step at best and the big 4 European clubs are only ever short term (not too sure about PSG on that score too soon to say)
All I have or tried to do was point out that you can never be too sure of any manager at a club, did Fergie leave us, no, did he ever get an offer from Madrid or Barca, not as far as I know.

 

There was clearly a major difference between Poch and Walker. Walker felt sleighted in some way and put on a Billy Big Bollocks strop, questioning Poch’s authority and disrupting the dressing room. What happened? Levy let Walker go - to a major rival, no less! Levy backed his manager. Contrast that with what happens at Chelsea. It is little wonder that Poch loves and trusts Levy and wants to deliver success for the club.

 

The current level is finishing 3rd and 2nd in the PL in the past two years (and presently 3rd now), but not having won a trophy.
That's a level Spurs haven't been at for a long time so nobody is knocking it. Pochettino has done better than any manager could be expected to do in every aspect of how he has developed the team.
But, by contrast, only a CL place and no trophy has brought Arsene Wenger ridicule in the past.
There is pressure to keep on progressing. That means top players realising their ambitions and winning trophies - and being paid the going rate for doing it.
Time for him to turn potential into tangible success.

 

Now that brings back memories of wasted youth.

I wonder if

"What's the word?" "Thunderbird." "What's the price?" "Fifty twice."

ever made it across the water.

 

No, that didn't make it over here that I knew of. When I was of an age to drink such stuff [under 18] it was always on the shelves of 'dodgy' convenience or 'corner shops' that would serve 7 year olds and drunk solely to get wasted as soon as possible. I don't remember seeing it for years but it is immortalised in Ian Dury's searing lament to the late Gene Vincent, here joined by a leather clad Mick Jones..............

 

I take him at his word. He sincerely loves where he is right now. As to moving on--naturally now that he's the hot property every big club will be linked to him. But from a steely-eyed realist's point of view (which I think Pochettino also has) if he leaves Spurs without winning something important, he is asking to be known as a nearly man. Remember, AVB once was the hot property, and he won something, and that still wasn't enough to keep his reputation intact through a poor choice of clubs. Most big clubs are poison chalices most of the time at this point. It pays to be very, very strategic about when you move and who you move to if what you want is a great career in the managerial game.

Great song...Now that I think about it (to wander completely OT), what kids drank to get trashed was very much race and class based in my day. When I drank with my black friends it had to be Thunderbird, White Tiger (which had the punchline on the label: "Serve Chilled") or quarts of Colt 45. White middle class girls drank Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill or some other awful sweet wine. White working class girls and boys might go for Southern Comfort. If ever a taste could say "You're going to regret this," it's Southern Comfort's taste. A group of three white friends and I would drink a case of Genesee Cream Ale when we were going to miss the whole day of school, and only then. The name sounded festive to us. Middle class white boys drank whatever hard liquor they could steal from their parents' liquor cabinets. The only drink with cross-cultural appeal was Miller Low Life, which found favor with both the greasers and the older black kids. I was useful because I was (like you) very tall, and the state store in one of the black neighborhoods would sell me liquor when I was 14 and the drinking age was 21--till I walked in there one day with my high school letter jacket on.

 

My youthful drinking was very much based upon the punk rock favourite - snakebite. An even/evil mix of lager and cider. Most pubs would refuse to serve it, either because it had a reputation of getting you very drunk [supposedly, due to the mix of fruit based and grain based alcohols] or because the mixture was a most unappetising looking thing, being extremely cloudy, it looked like the very bottom of the worst barrel of beer ever brewed.

Just asking for a pint of snakebite could get you barred from some pubs back then in the late 70's/early 80's. You were obviously trouble and best got rid of early. If you could get served and you wished to take your life in your own hands, dropping a mixture of pernod and blackcurrant cordial into the murky brew produced a whole new purple soup effect - 'The Purple Nasty'. You didn't want to vomit that stuff up as it would indelibly stain anything it came into contact with, in addition to completely shutting down the part of the brain that supplies common sense..

Looking back from my mid-50's, it seems so long ago in a land that was soooooo very different but when I go to a gig, occasionally I'll have a couple.......just to remember what it was like to be 16 and just not give a **** for anything beyond right here and right now.............

 

Haven't seen anyone mention our DOF's latest interview so thought I'd mention it here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41895195

Trying to give him the benefit of the doubt in all of this but to me it sounds as though he suffered from a bout of depression as a result of his injury - the peak of which came (in his own words) appx. 2 months ago, non-coincidentally the same time he gave that car crash interview with that car crash publication.

It does sound as though his relationship with Poch has been repaired, and that what fuelled his tantrum was disillusionment with the sport rather than the club per se.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions but I'm warming up to him again. He gave 100% against Palace and looked genuinely delighted when we scored.

The real question is of course: does Poch forgive him?

 

I've been at games since Danny Rose returned. He has been cheered but I've detected some reluctance. I've cheered him through gritted teeth. I can't say that I've forgiven him and it's certain that I won't forget what he did. I'm glad we kept him but only to deny him what he so obviously wanted and because the club needed to show that players are going to be held to their contracts and don't walk when they see fit. If he plays, I'll cheer him because we can't have anyone not putting it all in and I want us to win every game more than anything. Booing him serves nobody's best interests.

However, I'd rather he left after he's gone away for the World Cup. I hope he has a great tournament and becomes the first £100m defender. Yes, he's apologised. Yes, he seems a slightly less ridiculously selfish figure but he's probably realised that Mauricio Pochettino would refuse to pick him at all, if he hadn't moderated his behaviour and he'd spend the season before a World Cup playing no senior football. So, let's give him his wish and send him back up north for his thirty pieces of silver. We can use the money to buy Sessegnon and Barkley and improve upon what he offers to the club.

I would think that MP thinks exactly the same. More than anyone,Danny Rose owes him a huge debt of gratitude. He transformed him into a real footballer. Rose stabbed him and the club in the back. If MP and Danny Rose are still taking, it's because you keep your friends close and your enemies closer still.