Sustainability Will Help Tottenham Now and Later

Never has Mauricio Pochettino been more explicit about Tottenham’s plans for this season and beyond as he was in Thursday’s press conference ahead of Watford’s visit this weekend.

His time with the club has been characterized as much by a fundamentalist devotion to his tactical method as it has been his pragmatic handling of player transfers.

Over 18 months and four transfer windows, Pochettino and club chairman Daniel Levy have declined to make big splashes in the transfer market, preferring instead a more sustainable policy of profitable sales and reasonable buys. The method has resulted in a transfer surplus over the same time period. That’s a boast that few other Premier League clubs can make.

Still, both men have faced criticism over the last two transfer windows for failing to sign a recognized striker to act as cover – and competition – for current starter Harry Kane. Efforts to sign West Brom’s Saido Berahino and Fulham’s Moussa Dembélé on the final days of the last two windows have ended in notably public failure.

Thursday’s press conference was the first chance reporters had to ask Pochettino about the striker situation, and it led to a thoughtful and elaborate soliloquy from the Spurs manager.

“Our people need to understand that Tottenham changed their vision, not in terms of the football but in the way that we take decisions,” he said. “For us, it is very important to keep the balance and find the right player, not only the strikers but in different positions.”

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“You need to realize that to improve our squad today is a very difficult job. It’s easier to find different names on the market, to pay the money and to bring players but it’s not the way that we decided upon 18 months ago. It’s easier for me to say: ‘OK, we bring this and this, and this player’, but if we don’t believe that can improve our squad, why do it?”

These comments are nothing new, exactly. Pochettino has claimed before that players would only be added if they didn’t disrupt the balance already present in the squad. Even as Tottenham attempted to sign Dembélé, Pochettino talked up the ability of current Tottenham players like Heung-min Son and Nacer Chadli to feature in striker if called upon, and had even hinted at academy striker Shayon Harrison’s future with the first team. While bringing in Dembélé or Berahino might have been preferable, they were by no means vital additions.

The ease at which Tottenham are able to shrug off those failures is more or less directly linked with the fact that the club currently sit third in the Premier League table, just five points shy of league leaders Leicester City. That they’ve managed that feat by managing both the best defense in the league and the second best offense only throws the club’s struggles – or lack thereof – into harsher contrast.

Such results at this point in the season are, by almost any metric, wildly overachieving compared to Tottenham’s pre-season expectations. Not wanting to add unnecessary ingredients to such a surprisingly fine dish is therefore easier to justify.

Though maintaining such harmony is not at the core of the decision to not sign new players. Keeping the books balanced at Tottenham is absolutely key in the years leading up to the club’s new stadium, set to be built adjacent to the current White Hart Lane ahead of its debut in the 2018/19 season.

Pochettino made that especially clear in additional remarks on Thursday in which he sympathized with Tottenham’s arch-rivals, Arsenal.

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North London’s other Premier League club financed and built their current stadium – the Emirates – in the seasons following their last title win in 2003/04. The desire to remain competitive had to be balanced with the need to be fiscally responsible, leading to some stressful years for manager Arsène Wenger. Despite that pressure, the club has stayed competitive, dropping no lower than fourth place in the Premier League and thus qualifying for every Champions League season since – all while fully paying off the debts incurred from the Emirates’ construction.

“I have read a lot about Arsène Wenger saying the toughest period for Arsenal was in the period that they built their stadium,” Pochettino said. “And I think you need to know, and the people need to know, that this is a very tough period for us.

“We need to be careful because we need to arrive at the new stadium in very good condition to try to fight for everything, and try to show that we are one of the best clubs and teams in the world.”

Tottenham’s over-arcing strategy since Pochettino’s arrival has been to plan for how the club will be successful – both in terms of results and finances – once that new stadium is built. That it would appear as if his methods are finding some success now is a very happy accident.