Tottenham’s Ben Davies Talks Pochettino, Spurs and Wales
Tottenham Hotspur left-back, Ben Davies, had a chance to reflect on three topics recently: Mauricio Pochettino’s meeting with Sir Alex Ferguson, how Spurs’ season went and what he and his Welsh teammates hope to accomplish at Euro 2016.
Now that Mauricio Pochettino’s contract extension is in the rear view mirror, it appears that a few Tottenham players were cracking jokes about the possibility of the Argentine manager leaving Spurs to join Manchester United after a lunch meeting with Sir Alex Ferguson last month.
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According to Tottenham left-back, Ben Davies, everyone on the team knew that Pochettino was going to have a sit down with Ferguson, which is why no one had any issues with the whole ordeal.
A day after Mauricio Pochettino and Sir Alex Ferguson met, Tottenham had announced that Pochettino and the club reached an agreement that would see the 44-year-old remain at White Hart Lane until 2021.
“A few boys cracked jokes that he was going, but he signed a new contract the next day so all fears were out of the way,” Davies said (via ESPN UK).
“I like to think he [Pochettino] was tapping up his [Ferguson’s] experience and there was no ulterior motive.”
“We have a club where everyone, players and staff, is trying to learn all the time.”
“I think he spoke to someone like Sir Alex Ferguson to pick his brain as part of his learning and where he can improve.”
It was always going to be a tough sell for Mauricio Pochettino to leave a side that he practically revamped to become title contenders in just two seasons, for a team who have become a shell of their former selves after Sir Alex Ferguson retired.
The only positive that Manchester United have on their side is money to splurge, but that alone won’t be enough as Leicester and Tottenham have done more this past season by spending less.
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As for Spurs’ third place finish, Davies was still upbeat even though they lost out on the Premier League title to Leicester City and suffered an embarrassing loss against Newcastle United to let Arsenal finish above them once again for the 21st consecutive season.
“We earned the right to be there [in the Champions League] and it’s exciting times,” Ben Davies continued. “It’s where every club wants to be playing.”
“It’s everyone’s ambition to be there and we don’t have to go through the qualifying stage.”
“I like to think we will be stronger for the experience last season.”
“People experience highs and lows in football.”
“Sometimes the lows teach you valuable lessons that hopefully we can learn from and kick on from.”
Indeed, after suffering some gut-wrenching draws and losses this past term, Tottenham came into their next fixture ready to win.
Now obviously that didn’t happen in the final four matches when it mattered the most, but Spurs have shown that they learned valuable lessons by not suffering back-to-back defeats until the end of the season.
Which is quite impressive when you think about it.
And lastly, with the European Championship set to begin on June 10th, Wales who have qualified after a spectacular showing during the qualifiers are in a major tournament once again for the first time in 58 years, look set to make some noise.
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“I’d like to think this is the start of something,” Davies added. “We’ve worked hard to get to this situation.”
“There have been some tough times but we’ve stuck together as a group and come through it well.”
“We don’t just want to be the first Wales team to qualify [for 58 years] and that’s it.”
“We will keep working hard and hopefully winning games to qualify for major tournaments like this.”
Wales aren’t a powerhouse of a footballing nation, but with a good showing this summer at the Euros, they could potentially be one of the more exciting and dark horse teams to qualify for the 2018 World Cup and 2020 Euros.