Hugo Lloris and Mauricio Pochettino Altering Tottenham’s Priorities
Hugo Lloris believes that Tottenham’s priorities shouldn’t be on the title following Tottenham’s loss to Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday. Mauricio Pochettino meanwhile is looking to finish the season strong.
A 2-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday hasn’t guaranteed that Tottenham are out of the Premier League title picture just yet, but a loss on the road — to a top six club no less — has the Spurs captain and manager altering the club’s priorities.
Hugo Lloris still believes that he and his teammates can still fight for the league title but with 10 points separating Chelsea from Tottenham, that gap looks insurmountable with 13 games remaining.
For the French international, Lloris thinks that how Spurs do in the Europa League this Thursday and the FA Cup could help establish a winning mentality when they compete for titles on two fronts.
A “title winning mentality” is something that is desperately needed for this young squad when they must compete with the best.
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“Before thinking about the title, we need to think about the teams behind us in the table, because they are all top clubs with top players and they are used to fighting for the top four and for trophies.” Lloris told the Evening Standard.
“Maybe they are more experienced than us. Even if we had good experience last season when we were fighting for the title, it is not enough.”
“It is difficult to explain and we need to question ourselves about this.”
“We need to have ambitions in both the Europa League and FA Cup because it is important to feel this kind of pressure. We are young and need to feel the pressure of these games to improve.”
“We have plenty of young players with a lot of talent but we need to go through these kinds of situations because you can’t buy experience. You need to face these situations, live them.”
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“The Europa League is a top competition. We would like to have still been in the Champions League but we still need to enjoy this competition. We have a status: we are Tottenham. We need to show that in every competition we are involved in.”
Mauricio Pochettino echoed his team captain’s sentiments. That there’s a lot to fight for this season despite slowly and soon, eventually, missing out on another chance to win a league title since last season.
But first, it starts with improving the team’s quality on the pitch and reclaiming their aggression to dominate opponents and not be the ones to get dominated.
“We cannot fail in this area of the game.” Pochettino claimed. “The aggression has to be natural, especially against top teams.”
“We need to learn a lot from the Liverpool game. My feeling is that this was not the first time we had started a game in this way.”
“We did it at Manchester City and even at Manchester United.”
“Before thinking about next season, we need to concentrate on finishing as high as possible. There is a lot for us to gain.”
“We can put this club consistently in the top four and we are still involved in two cup competitions. We have done very well at home and, hopefully, we can improve our away form.”
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Hugo Lloris and Mauricio Pochettino’s plan is simple. It’s as simple as simple can be.
Win as many games as possible in the Premier League and keep ahold of a top four spot from now until May, while also picking up some much needed experience during the Europa League and FA Cup as they fight for some silverware.