On Tuesday afternoon, Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino met with the media to preview Wednesday’s third round EFL Cup clash against Watford.
As you can imagine a wide-ranging set of topics were covered in the questioning, not least whether playing the game at MK Dons’ Stadium would provide a potential excuse if we were to lose but the obvious one surrounding what starting XI he would go with.
The Inter Milan decisions over Kieran Trippier and Toby Alderweireld obviously came into play and Pochettino took full advantage to build on, and refine, his comments in his previous rant.
His full words can be found Here.
To paraphrase a little, Poch confirmed that he would be looking to make a number of changes for the game and he didn’t feel he should be questioned on his decision to do so. He obviously leant on having a squad full of players to keep happy, and the need to give them minutes so they weren’t marginalised in the group, retained confidence and were ready to be called upon when needed.
But he did deny that making changes for the Cup competition should in anyway be used to reflect on how seriously he was taking the game and nor that he didn’t want to win the tie.
“Of course we want to win. We have a lot of games ahead. I think we rotate, trying to find the best solution to try to win games. But the obsession here in England is to try to disrespect the players who play in one or another competition, and for me it’s so difficult to understand. It’s like we disrespect the competition or we don’t take it seriously. I think when Tottenham are going to play tomorrow, we are going trying to win.”
Repeating that he doesn’t understand why people obsess over why X player comes in with X player left out, he also said former players were often the worst for those opinions in his humble.
“Sorry, but for me it’s so difficult to understand, that obsession about why one or another plays. It’s like all the managers want to lose. No one wants to win. I think it’s crazy and the problems sometimes is not from the media. But sometimes some people who play football and were professionals. Their opinion is similar and it’s difficult to understand, because I was a professional player and now a manager, and you need to understand that to deal with 24 or 25 players is not easy.”
He definitely has a point and whilst his focus was really the media, in saying no manager wants to lose there will be some who appropriate that to fans who question must want to lose, and that’s not what he’s saying.
It’ll certainly be interesting to see who he goes with now though.