Mauricio Pochettino: lack of effort is causing Tottenham slide
James Gheerbrant
September 26 2019, 5:00pm, The Times
Football
Pochettino’s side have won only two of their eight matches this season and lost to Colchester on Tuesday
Pochettino has suggested that his players’ lack of commitment is behind the decline of Tottenham’s defending, and accused some members of his squad of costing the club valuable time by expending mental energy on unresolved transfer sagas.
Spurs have won only two of their eight matches in all competitions this season, and on Tuesday exited the Carabao Cup at the third-round stage following a penalty shoot-out defeat to League Two side Colchester United.
Pochettino identified a drop in “the will to recover the ball” as “the key point we need to fix”, and blamed “so many circumstances which are open” for his team’s poor start to the season.
“If you don’t win matches then you reveal why you are not performing, why these guys are not doing well,” he said. “Those situations are there.”
In an extraordinary, wide-ranging press conference at the club’s Enfield training ground, Pochettino also admitted that the club’s Champions League final defeat left him “depressed” and “suffering”.
Tottenham go into Saturday’s Premier League game against Southampton having kept only one clean sheet in six league games this season, a stark departure from their usually high defensive standards.
The Argentinian admitted that his team “deserve to be criticised”, adding that: “The critics can make you realise that we maybe need to wake up [to] something.”
Asked what the team’s biggest issue was, Pochettino identified a weakness in their trademark press, a problem he attributed to the attitude of his players rather than a change in his philosophy - even suggesting that some members of his squad are approaching their off-the-ball duties with the reluctance of a five-a-side player forced to play in goal.
“Collectively we need to press better, to be tougher out of possession” he said.
“I was talking with some players . . . it’s like when you go with your friends to play five v five. No one wants to go in goal. You want to play with the ball. You don’t want to be chasing people, and running in behind. And maybe we lose this balance. We want the ball more than before, we dominate games more . . . but there is another part of the game — when you don’t have the ball, to be all together, on the same page, the will to recover the ball. I think we drop a little bit in this collectively.
“That is not about talent or positional game. That’s about the will to recover this aggression, all together to be in the same page when you have the ball and when you don’t. That is, for me, the key point that we need to fix.”
After the defeat against Colchester, Pochettino had alluded to “different agendas in the squad”. Asked to clarify exactly what he meant, he asked his assistant Jesús Pérez to translate his remarks from Spanish in an effort to make himself clearly understood.
“He meant by using ‘different agendas’, until the [closure of the European] transfer window [on September 2], until [the match against Crystal] Palace, there were different circumstances, individual circumstances,” Pérez explained.
“We spoke to the players, and they said, ‘OK, it’s the same as last season, from now we start again.’ And he meant that on Tuesday: the energy and time you spend on those situations, rather than being purely focused on training and matches.
“Nothing’s completely broken, it’s just that sometimes, temporarily, the mindset can change, and then to get back on track takes time. The players are really focused, but maybe we are late on some kind of preparation as a team, because as he said, it doesn’t just change overnight, your circumstances, your mental preparation — as an athlete it takes time.”
Pochettino added: “There are two ways to start pre-season: with no distractions, when everyone comes to fight, to start to play. Or when there are so many circumstances which are open. Then you need to start on the official games and the competition does not wait on you and your circumstances.”
However, Pochettino admitted that he was carrying baggage of his own, with the Champions League final defeat on 1 June having taken an emotional toll.
“In football I suffered two big disappointments,” he said. “One when I was a player: it was always my dream to play in a World Cup. We played three games [at the 2002 tournament] and went home — when we were a candidate to win. I stayed at home and didn’t go out for ten days.
“Another was with Tottenham to win a trophy and the closest to win a trophy was of course the Champions League. To achieve the final with Tottenham was more than a dream. In that moment [of defeat] I felt disappointed, and then I took a train to Barcelona and again, you are like depressed . . . You cannot be happy.
“Football for me is about the glory. There is nothing more important. When you win, how you feel . . . there is not another thing you can find like it. Of course I am suffering. This is my sixth season here and I am in an unbelievable environment: the training ground is amazing and we have the best stadium in the world. But football is about glory, it is about winning. The challenge is to get back there and we are going to fight to make this possible.”
Asked if he believed he was the right man to take Tottenham forward, Pochettino said, “I believe yes and I hope yes,” adding with a laugh: “If not, you are going to see quickly.”