Pochettino and Tottenham's third-place 'disappointment' - Football365
"Joy of sixth
Tottenham beat Leicester 5-4 to finish third in the Premier League on Sunday. The gap to champions Manchester City was a gargantuan 23 points, but only four points separated them from runners-up Manchester United.
In his review of the Premier League season for
BBC Sport, Phil McNulty expresses his ‘disappointment that no title challenge materialised’. It feels a little unfair, considering they were no better than fourth-favourites in the pre-season betting.
It feels even more unfair when you consider that McNulty predicted them to finish sixth at the start of the season. They’ve overachieved, if anything.
Spurred on
Writes a breathless Darren Lewis in the first paragraph of his report from Wembley:
‘Epic, exhilarating and at times exhausting even trying to keep up.’
Considering Lewis deleted a tweet at half-time from the game stating that the score was 0-0, you’d better believe him.
HotchPoch
As well as a report on the nine-goal classic, Lewis serves up some intriguing Mauricio Pochettino quotes for the
Daily Mirror. They even make the back page. But by the time it reaches the Daily Mirror website, they decide that a headline of ‘Poch wants Mour money’ simply will not do. Manager asks for more money to spend. Who on earth is going to read that?
On the other hand, how many people are likely to click on ‘Pochettino hints at Spurs exit unless he gets big money to challenge for titles’? You know the answer.
They are not alone.
The Sun go as far as splashing a picture of a moody-looking Pochettino on their back page, claiming that the manager ‘threw his Spurs future into doubt’ in a ‘remarkable post-match press conference’.
Those Pochettino quotes in question?
“We need to talk a lot between us and the club. I think I have a very clear idea of what we need to do. I don’t know if the club will agree with me or not, but we are going to talk next week to create what I think we need to do together again, to try to improve. That is a little bit up to Daniel and the club, of course, to agree with us because, after four years, I think we need to assess that period if we want to compete for big, big trophies. I think all that we achieved until today is fantastic but it will be so important to create again."
“I think they’re going to listen to me, of course, but sometimes I have some crazy ideas. But you need to be brave in this kind of situation, in our club with our unbelievable fans, and take risks. I think it’s a moment for the club to take risks and try to be competitive. I am sure Daniel is going to listen to me and of course we can create together to help the team to move on.”
It almost sounds more like an annual review than ‘hinting at an exit’, and certainly not ‘remarkable’. It would be weird if they
didn’t talk about the future this summer.
Who could blame Pochettino for leaving anyway? Perhaps the ‘disappointment’ of finishing third having been backed to come sixth will just be too much."
Apologies if this has been posted already but I think some here need to read, re-read and print out and put up on their walls.
