Pochettino: Tottenham Were Competitive and Showed Great Character
Mauricio Pochettino spoke of how competitive Tottenham were in their 2-0 victory over Chelsea. With Spurs closing the gap from first place to seven points, a title hunt is surely on tap.
Over the two-and-a-half years that Mauricio Pochettino has managed Tottenham, he has helped guide his young squad to some big wins.
Beating Chelsea after the run they were in is most definitely one of the Argentine manager’s biggest highlights in his managerial career for Spurs.
Just to remind everyone what the north London club was dealing with, here are the numbers. The Blues had won 13-straight games, they had picked up 10 clean sheets (six in a row) and only conceded four goals.
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Truly a remarkable run of good form. It’s too bad that they ran headfirst into a brick wall and didn’t make a dent.
Not only is Tottenham playing some of their best football in recent weeks as well, but they own quite possibly one of the most intimidating venues to play in the Premier League: White Hart Lane.
With the fans sitting extremely close to the pitch and the crowd singing to give the players energy for 90 minutes, it’s no surprise that one, Spurs are unbeaten at home. And two, it makes an already competitive team seem almost unstoppable.
The match was very close with both sides having some clear opportunities to take an early lead. With no shots being on target for nearly 45 minutes, Spurs managed to take control with a brilliant headed effort by Dele Alli at the stroke of half-time.
Alli’s execution was perfect and so was Christian Eriksen’s delivery to set it all up.
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From there, even with a slim 1-0 lead, Tottenham looked to be in control with Chelsea hardly troubling Spurs’ defense or even Hugo Lloris.
Being in control is how Mauricio Pochettino would asses his team’s performance following their 2-0 win.
“Now we can say ‘yes’ but it was a very tough game,” Pochettino said if his team had control throughout the game after hardly being challenged.
“We were playing one of the best teams in Europe and I thought we played very well, we were competitive and that’s important. It was a very solid performance, fantastic.”
“And what I mean by competitive is to suffer when you need to suffer, to be solid, to be strong in your mind and always believe,” Mauricio Pochettino explained.
The word competitive appeared to be the key word in the Argentine manager’s post-match interview with Spurs TV. So much so, that it was one of the keys to Tottenham’s victory.
“For me, that we were competitive from the start,” the 44-year-old boss said.
“Okay, we can talk about different things, tactical situations but as a team we were competitive and showed great character.”
As for what this game meant for everyone involved, last season’s title run, a narrow loss back in November, both clubs playing some good football, what did it all mean for Pochettino? Was he satisfied with last night’s victory when you add everything together?
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“Yes, but not for what happened last season.” Mauricio Pochettino began.
“That chapter is closed. It’s because we’re ambitious and we want to improve and we want to learn and that is important, to improve every season.”
“We’re in the most competitive league and we’re showing character and quality.”