Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino was recently freed from the self-feeding media frenzy surrounding both Manchester United and Real Madrid when it came to their hotseats, so as if by magic there are now claims that he’s AC Milan’s ‘first choice’ pick for new chief executive Ivan Gazidis.
The original claim comes from Corriere Della Sera but even allowing for the translation, it’s seriously flawed and reads like invented opinion, rather than even attempting to hide behind ‘we understand from sources’.
For a start they claim Pochettino is Gazidis’ first pick, should he actually decide to sack Gennaro Gattuso (which is up for debate) and more than anything it seems to come from his time at Arsenal where he’d have been very aware of our growth under the Argentine.
For a second, everyone saw Arsene Wenger’s hampered transfer market attempts, so why would Poch make the switch on that basis as Gazidis was key to that perceived lack of investment as he prioritised balancing the books over success.
Third, Poch remained coy on Real and United interest, often discussing the project, how happy he was with us and so on.
And finally, we’ve just moved into White Hart Lane and everyone knows Poch’s words about pushing on now so Spurs match our stadium.
But I guess, given the rich repeat content some outlets can get from Poch to… stories, it was only going to be a matter of time before he was linked elsewhere with United and Real now out of the question for a few months at least.