Pochettino Has a Long-term Project with Tottenham
The season isn’t over yet, but Mauricio Pochettino has set Tottenham up for future seasons with his current long-term project.
All of the attention recently, from the media to online publications, has been focused on Leicester City and Tottenham’s chances of winning the Premier League.
But underneath all of the predictions being thrown around, what might have been slightly overlooked — or not discussed enough — is the fact that Mauricio Pochettino’s long-term project has set Tottenham up for continued success even after this season is over.
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If Leicester wins, they could either stay at the top and possibly repeat (not unlikely but difficult) or fade away after winning the championship and struggle to remain as a consistently good team in the Premier League.
For Tottenham, while the big five will return, or should return to their former selves, Pochettino has built a squad that can compete with the best there is in the top-flight division as seen this season.
A major part of Tottenham’s success this year can be contributed to the managerial job that Mauricio Pochettino has done in only his second season in charge of Spurs.
He identified players that needed to be sold, to get rid of certain bad eggs which is an easier way of describing players who not only didn’t fit Pochettino’s vision for the club. But they didn’t agree with his ideals, hence they got the axe and were chopped.
If selling players has benefited Tottenham’s squad to be more close-knit with one another than perhaps some other clubs in the league, then adding a few pieces is what helped complete the team.
Obviously Toby Alderweireld is the main driving force that has helped Tottenham on the pitch with top-notch defending and deadly accurate long balls over the top.
But along with the Belgian international, key contributions from Kevin Wimmer (to take over for an injured Jan Vertonghen) and Kieran Trippier (to spell Kyle Walker from time to time) has given Spurs great depth at the backline and confidence that not all of Pochettino’s starters have to play in a game to secure three points.
Rather, it’s more of a pick-and-choose approach.
Which fixture is more important at the moment? Who’s been in form lately? Who matches up better against certain teams?
It’s a flexibility that Mauricio Pochettino and Tottenham didn’t have last season.
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Put another way, the Argentine manager has reversed Daniel Levy’s previous perceptions of selling players — good ones — to make a profit and use that money to bring in others (which wouldn’t be surprising if Levy actually thought like this).
In any event, Mauricio Pochettino is about keeping players who he deems will be the cornerstones of Tottenham’s success and will only add more to the squad if absolutely needed (i.e. every single player signed last summer).
“Our idea is to keep the main group of players for the next few years and try to build,” Pochettino said (quotes via The Independent).
“Then we can add players to help us.”
It’s a simple strategy, one that seemed to have been lost on by previous managers and/or Daniel Levy. One way or another, Tottenham back then was thought of as a selling club. Now? Not so much. They have bucked that trend to keep their own players from ever leaving and building up some continuity with a core group of key members.
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This season, despite having a young squad competing for a Premier League title, the amount of experience that the players have currently been getting these past two years when Mauricio Pochettino took over as manager — as well as new signings — will only continue to make Tottenham better moving forward.
“We have the youngest squad in the Premier League and yet here we are fighting for the title,” Mauricio Pochettino added. “We are ahead of where we should be in our programme and we are only going to get better.”
“For a lot of players this is their first season in the Premier League and I am sure they will be better next season because they have more experience. You always need time to develop your quality.”