Spurs’ Mauricio Pochettino Isn’t Looking for Normal Players
Spurs’ manager, Mauricio Pochettino, isn’t looking for “normal players” but the right ones who will help them achieve their goals this season.
Mauricio Pochettino has already stated that players need to fit a certain profile, or the right profile, in order to be considered a Tottenham player. But doing so means Spurs will be scouting for every minute detail as possible before finalizing an official bid. By then, it would be too late. Sometimes Pochettino and his staff have found all the information they need only to pass on sanctioning a move.
So what gives? What’s the hesitation? Especially if it’s widely considered as a good idea to get a backup striker — or a starter alongside Harry Kane — who would be used as insurance in a worst case scenario. Such as an injury to the England international.
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And honestly, Pochettino hears everyone’s thoughts loud and clear. He and his staff are scouting players. But his philosophy to find the right ones isn’t so simple. To find players who are good fits for the team from a talent and character standpoint is difficult.
For the Argentine manager, being talented isn’t enough. You have to be professional: respect the team, the badge, your coaches and your teammates. In a nutshell, Mauricio Pochettino doesn’t want “normal” players.
Dan Kilpatrick, a Tottenham correspondent for ESPN wrote about Pochettino’s requirements for players that he is interested in.
“The problem is when you bring some player who is a normal player, who isn’t a good man and you say: ‘For what?’ We need to bring a player with the right profile and enough quality to improve the squad.”
“We are in a different project than a few years ago because we’re in the process of building a new stadium. You know the difficult period another club had. For us, it’s very important to get it right.”
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Getting it right could mean many things. But in this instance it could be being very frugal with the club’s money and not wasting it away like they did during the summer of 2013.
In other words, Spurs could spend £6 million to sign Moussa Dembélé, who checks all of the boxes that Mauricio Pochettino is looking for in a footballer in terms of having talent and a high character.
Or, they could spend around £25-30 million on a player who can make an immediate impact if signed and be inserted straight into the starting lineup.
And with Érik Lamela and Son Heung-min who cost between the £25-30 million range, Spurs have two such players who are talented and have a high character that Pochettino is looking for. Here’s the Argentine manager continuing on about certain type of players Spurs should target.
“If we spend £25-30 million, we need to be sure that this type of player represents [Gareth] Bale or Cristiano [Ronaldo] for Real Madrid, or [Lionel] Messi or Neymar for Barcelona.
“We need to speak about a player that is our best player and need to help us to achieve a lot of things. It’s impossible to sign a player for this amount who we need to wait to perform.”
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That last sentence could be a slight hint that maybe Saido Berahino wouldn’t make the grade at White Hart Lane this season. While the 22-year-old Burundi-born striker is young, talented and has plenty of potential, his form is terribly off this term. Waiting for him to get into a groove wouldn’t work out.
He would need to start games (substitutions won’t cut it) and take a starting spot to find his groove. Berahino is the ultimate high-risk, high-reward type of signing that would be best handled once the season is over and during the upcoming summer transfer window.
An inquiry — if Spurs want to do this — wouldn’t be outlandish. It’s merely to gauge the Baggies interest in selling Saido Berahino once again, but after he had a down year.