Pochettino: Tottenham is One of Seven Teams in Title Hunt
Mauricio Pochettino believes Tottenham have five other Premier League title contenders along with Leicester City.
Generally speaking, as of right now, the Premier League is a two-team race between Leicester City (first) and Tottenham (second). But should Arsenal (third) and Manchester City (fourth) return to winning ways with both clubs having a game in hand, the title race could expand to four teams.
But for Mauricio Pochettino, it’s not a two-team race or four teams competing for the Premier League title. Instead, it involves seven teams who could all grab a chance at glory come the end of this season in May. The Argentine manager has pointed out that West Ham United (fifth), Manchester United (sixth) and Southampton (seventh) all have potential Premiership title aspirations.
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“For me, at the moment we compete with different teams — not only Leicester, but Arsenal, Manchester City, [Man] United, West Ham and Southampton have the possibility [to win the title]. It’s mathematically possible,” Pochettino said.
“Seven games is a lot of points. You never know in football. We need to be focused in every game. It’s not just a race between Leicester City and us.”
Now whether any of this is actually true, that at most, seven clubs could fight for a top-flight division championship or not, is perhaps down to a bit of reverse psychology from the Argentine manager.
Pochettino could be pushing his team harder by making sure that his players don’t get too “big-headed” or in over their heads, just because the title race at this moment in time is solely between Tottenham and Leicester. But the reason he believes so many teams are in a title hunt is because to him, anything can happen in football.
“I am not a politician. I am strong when I need to be, fearless. But I am realistic. In football anything can happen. We believe we can win the title, but other teams have the possibility to fight with us. I’m realistic. I’m not polite.”
And while Mauricio Pochettino even listed Southampton as a Premier League title contender despite being 17 points adrift of league leaders, Leicester City, that was quickly put to rest by Saints’ manager, Ronald Koeman, himself.
“I do not agree with Mauricio. It is nice to hear that Southampton is one of the seven teams that are still fighting but I do not see it like that.”
“In my opinion it is between Tottenham and Leicester.”
So once again, we’re back to square one. A Premier League title being contested by the top two teams this season: Leicester and Tottenham.
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For Tottenham manager, Mauricio Pochettino, it’s pretty simple what his team has to do. And that’s just to focus on themselves while hoping that Leicester drop points in the process.
It’ll be difficult though, even if the Foxes have been cutting it close lately with four of their last five matches being 1-0 wins.
“We need to give credit to Leicester,” Pochettino added. “Today they’re on top because they deserve to be on top. From the beginning of the season they’ve been fantastic. We cannot take credit from them.”
“We’re in a position, a very good position, and we cannot compare with another team.”
“We have seven games. We need to fight to the end of the season with the possibility to win big things. One is a possibility to win the title, the other to be in the top four.”
“We need to try to win every game, and wait for Leicester to drop points. This is our objective: we’re not focused on seven games — we’re focused on Saturday [against Liverpool], our game. And then we wait to see what happens in another stadium.”
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Once Tottenham play Liverpool and depending on the results, it’ll be a quick turnaround as Spurs will welcome Manchester United to White Hart Lane just eight days later.
For a team who has been up and down this season, the Red Devils have surprisingly posted a respectable record against teams in the top four this season.
Getting wins over Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham and picking up draws against Leicester, Manchester City and West Ham. While only losing once (Arsenal) to have a three win, three draw and one loss record.
Again, Man United have done very well against the top four, and while next Sunday’s contest is a ways away — and at home — this could be a tricky match-up for Mauricio Pochettino to continue picking up points and keeping pace with the Foxes.