Tottenham Hotspur Links: Mauricio Pochettino Open to England Manager Role
Here’s Saturday’s edition of Tottenham Hotspur Links.
It’s Saturday and a day before Tottenham faces Chelsea at White Hart Lane. Let’s take a look at the four stories that will be making up today’s Tottenham Hotspur Links. We begin with Mauricio Pochettino being open to the idea of managing England in the future, if that ever became an option. Next, Tottenham and Arsenal look set to engage in a bidding war for the 18-year-old Basel striker, Breel Embolo. The third story is about Son Heung-min and how he recalls his first senior goal was against Chelsea as a member of Hamburger SV in 2010. And finally, there was a rumor of the Premier League reducing the amount of clubs from 20 to 18 to help the England national team do better in international competitions. Time to get to the links.
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The last 17 players who have been called up to the England senior national team, nine of them were manged by Mauricio Pochettino during his Southampton days and now with Tottenham. It shows that he can get the best out of English players despite not speaking English when he first arrived in England. Therefore it makes too much sense for him to become the new England manager if given the opportunity — but that’s further down the road of course, since he’s currently Tottenham’s manager and has done a fantastic job in only 18 months.
Now here’s Mauricio Pochettino talking about a possible England manager role:
“You never know in football. I am always open for the future.”
“It is very difficult for me to answer but you never know what will happen in the future. If someone had asked me three or four years ago whether I would work in England, I would have said, ‘Of course not, because I don’t speak English’.”
“But then the owner of Southampton called me and said he wanted me to manage their team. Now I am here at Tottenham and speaking English. But I am very happy here at Tottenham. I enjoy it a lot. I find the people and the chairman have a very good philosophy.”
- Tottenham and Arsenal set for bidding war over Breel Embolo
- [via Daily Express]
Tottenham were allegedly in pole position to sign the young 18-year-old Basel striker Breel Embolo when the January transfer window arrived. It’s unknown when Spurs had the first crack at the Swiss international, but in any event they now have a bidding war upon them according to the Daily Express.
Arsenal are reportedly looking to offer Basel £21 million to sign Embolo who has made 17 appearances this season and scored eight goals. If Spurs were able to sign the young striker, it would only be £4 million lower than the £25 million bid for a 22-year-old Saido Berahino. If Tottenham has to spend over 20-million-plus to sign a backup striker for Harry Kane then obviously it’s not worth it whatsoever.
Mauricio Pochettino would be better off promoting a youth player or finding a striker from the lower leagues who could become a backup striker, so long as they don’t mind playing in a minimal amount of games.
- Son Heung-min’s first senior goal for Hamburger SV was against Chelsea
- [via Tottenham’s official site]
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The year was 2010 and a then-18-year-old Son Heung-min was coming off of the bench during an August pre-season friendly to score the game-winning goal in the 87th minute at Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion in Bahrenfeld, Hamburg, Germany.
A relatively unknown South Korean international who came through Hamburg’s youth academy, after arriving from FC Seoul Youth, made his name known in Germany and his native country after his first senior goal. Here’s Son reminiscing on that moment five years ago:
“I remember scoring against Chelsea,” Son said. “It was my first goal in the stadium for Hamburg, I was 18 and I scored the winning goal for 2-1 so it was a great time. Before that most people didn’t know me but after I scored against Chelsea all the fans and the Korean papers were all talking about ‘Sonny, Sonny, Sonny’ so it was amazing for me. It’s always very important to play and score and I hope that this time I can do the same. We will see!”
From the Sky Sports article above, there’s a quote from a spokesman who said this: “The FA has no plans to call for a reduction in the number of teams in the Premier League. Of course, we continue to have discussions with the Premier League about positive ways in which we can work together to help the England team and develop the game in this country.”
While this rumor has been squashed it’s not a new proposition by any means. Before the Premier League was created, the old Football League First Division from 1898 to 1905 consisted of 18 clubs for a top-flight division. So whether the Premier League goes down to 18 clubs or not wouldn’t be a drastic change as many believe it to be.
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The only major change would be having the bottom two Premier League clubs get relegated and only have the top two Championship clubs be promoted. Or, the first place Championship club is automatically promoted while teams placed from two through five battle it out in a Championship playoffs: four teams in the semi-finals, two teams in the finals. Winner of the Championship playoffs earns the second and final promotion spot.