Test for Pochettino as Spurs and Chelsea Look to Be Going in Opposite Direction

Given the vagaries of football opinion make those of the weather or economy seem stable in comparison, the current blanket of doubt being thrown over Mauricio Pochettino and his Tottenham Hotspur side seems just about reasonable.

That's to say it's reasonable in the same way it's reasonable to let out an involuntary laugh when someone falls over in the street in a slapstick fashion, less so if you can't stop chuckling on discovering there has been a broken limb. It's all about moderation. 

Pochettino hasn't become a bad manager overnight. 

He has, though, overseen just one win in Tottenham's last nine matches and a catastrophic UEFA Champions League campaign that stooped to a new nadir on Tuesday night. An abject defeat in Monaco saw Spurs suffer the indignity of being eliminated with a group game still left to play. 

It's like having to hang around on a quiz show when your light has gone out. The possibility of the Europa League is no more a consolation prize than winning a vacuum cleaner when you had been playing for a new car. 

Pochettino's decision to prioritise Saturday's game against Chelsea game over Tuesday's in Monaco angered supporters and left neutrals bemused in equal measures. 

A fit to start Jan Vertonghen was left on the substitutes' bench, alongside the rested Kyle Walker, despite Spurs already missing the injured Toby Alderweireld. Christian Eriksen was also omitted.

By choice, Tottenham started against Monaco, in a game they had to win to revive chances of progression (a draw would have just about kept hopes alive), with three quarters of their regular back four missing. Danny—a Rose between three thorns.

Having spent five years trying to get back into the UEFA Champions League, a conscious decision was made to prioritise a game in November that is one of 38 to determine whether next season they will be able to return to the same competition.

This was less the tail wagging the dog, as the tail tying itself into a noose around the dog's neck. It's like saving up all year to eat at an expensive restaurant and then when you get there, dolled up to the nines, ordering tap water and some bread to share.

From the outside peering in over the fence, it does seem as though Tottenham have lost a little perspective with regards Saturday's rerun of the "Battle of the Bridge."

Spurs' acute ire at surrendering a two-goal half-time lead in the corresponding fixture last season, to gift-wrap the Premier League title to Leicester City without Claudio Ranieri's side having to play, was best illustrated via the nine bookings they picked up. A Premier League record no less.

The Football Association later hit Mousa Dembele with a six-match retrospective ban for appearing to eye-gouge Diego Costa. Referee Mark Clattenburg mustn't have had a big enough book.

In fairness, by the end of the game, Spurs' players, taking their cue from an enraged Pochettino, had started to resemble the kids in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, who go full primal and, in the absence of an authoritative figure, kill Piggy. It's a good job there wasn't a conch kicking around on the night.

There's an argument to say they have yet to fully recover.

Danny Rose, who misses Saturday's derby through suspension, has this week conceded Spurs' players were in tears in the dressing room after the game last season, per the Daily Mirror's Darren Lewis. 

Chelsea celebrating winning a point as though it had won them the league, not Leicester, incensed the away side.

Prior to the game Eden Hazard, Willian and Cesc Fabregas had all said they didn't want Tottenham to win the league in interviews with Sky Sports and Match Of The Day (h/t the Telegraph). Given Chelsea had played the majority of the campaign wearing flip flops in the meekest defence of a title in living memory, it's hard to imagine Saturday's game won't be full of more needle than Trainspotting 2. 

Certainly the atmosphere inside Stamford Bridge on the night transcended the previous year when Chelsea had won the league courtesy of a tedious 1-0 win over Crystal Palace.

"They (Chelsea) are, not only in England but in Europe, the team most in form today," said Pochettino in his press conference on Thursday. 

If he really wanted to instil a little confidence in his players, he should have also mentioned the fact Chelsea have won their last six league games, scoring 17 without reply. And maybe add in how they haven't conceded a goal in 585 minutes of league football since ditching a porous back four for a back three tighter than a pair of Jamie Redknapp's slacks. And don't forget Hazard and Diego Costa have gone from sulking to sublime since Conte got hold of them. 

No one could have predicted Chelsea being 3-0 down at Arsenal at half-time may potentially have made their season. Many will have thought it could have broken it, with a report from David Woods of the Daily Star at the time suggesting Conte was dissatisfied with the club's transfer business over the summer. Well-publicised meetings between manager and owner Roman Abramovich hardly suggested it was the happiest of camps either. It's not looking so bad now. 

In stark comparison, Monday's win against West Ham United was a first for Tottenham in five Premier League games, while over the same period, just a solitary clean sheet has been kept, away at Bournemouth. That's not great for a side whose title tilt last term was built on having the joint-stingiest defence in the league with Manchester United. They last won away in September and have Chelsea, Manchester United and Southampton up next on their travels. 

History does not bode overly well for Tottenham either. They have not won at Stamford Bridge in the league for 26 years. Gary Lineker scored the winner that day in February 1990. He used to be a footballer before he became the leader of the opposition.

At the start of last month, you would have been hard-pressed, literally in the case of Manchester City, to find a negative word said about Pochettino. He was so in vogue it's a wonder Anna Wintour didn't swap her front-row season ticket at the world's most exclusive fashion shows for one at White Hart Lane.

From couture to crap in the space of seven or so weeks: Welcome to modern football.

When Pochettino outsmarted Guardiola on October 2 to end City's remarkable 10-game winning start to the season, it was to the type of fanfare usually reserved for his fellow manager. There was more joyous talk of pressing than at an orange-juice-squeezer convention.

If he wrote the (sky) blueprint to stopping City in pencil, it has been gone over in pen by several subsequent managers since. City have won just three of nine games on the back of losing at White Hart Lane.

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

In afflicting on City a first defeat of the season, Spurs were left as the only unbeaten team in the Premier League. They remain the only side across all four divisions of English football yet to have tasted a league defeat this season. Couple the City result with draws against Liverpool and Arsenal and it shows despite their Champions League pileups, especially those at Wembley, Spurs are capable of delivering in big matches. 

As crises go, it's not exactly Suez.

Still, of the Premier League's stable of Galactico gaffers, it is now Pochettino's turn to run the gauntlet of skepticism. It is one Guardiola, Conte, Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger have all had to endure at various points over the season already. Jurgen Klopp may be universally popular, but he's an island in this respect. The German has not come in for any serious criticism, though would probably happily pull apart a library of less than complimentary articles written about him last season when the jury was hung.

While Conte's tactical nous has been widely garlanded, Pochettino, perhaps for the first time since the early days of his tenure at Southampton—when he was roundly criticised by virtue of not being his predecessor Nigel Adkins (it turned out OK in the end)—is having his methods questioned.

Notwithstanding the team he picked, there was a naivety to Spurs in midweek that would have perhaps been forgivable, given their age and inexperience at this level, were it not for last season's exploits.

Football is an unforgiving taskmaster. It won't tolerate going backwards. Injuries have definitely played a part, but too many of Tottenham's players have failed to hit the heights.

To play such a high attacking line, with wing-backs pushed right on when Victor Wanyama dropped in to form a back three, was only ever going to invite on a lively Monaco side full of confidence.

Given the principality outfit have scored 39 goals from 13 domestic games, it does seem a little odd Pochettino never considered such an attack might be worth guarding against by employing something vaguely resembling a defence.

Pochettino may choose to demonstrate his tactical chops on Saturday by going with a 3-4-1-2 formation, as he did to good effect against Arsenal. To watch him bristle when it was asked of him after the north London derby whether he had been influenced by Conte's use of a back three was to gain a nice little insight into how he still speaks of Chelsea through gritted teeth.

Matching up Chelsea could prove the best way to quell the threat of their marauding wing-backs Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses, though Everton boss Ronaldo Koeman is unlikely to advocate such an approach having been on the receiving end of a 5-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge having done just that.

If tactically Pochettino has looked uncertain, Conte could not have been more decisive. Of any Premier League manager it is the Italian who has identified problems the quickest, and even more impressively, solved them without breaking his stride. He eased in his preferred 3-4-3 system with kid gloves, only implementing it when Chelsea had lost a couple of league games on the bounce. It was a clever move, justified as it was as being a switch born from pragmatism not ideology or ego.

Spurs' final UEFA Champions League group game against CSKA Moscow at Wembley Stadium the week after next could shape their season. A defeat is the only result that would ensure Pochettino's side doesn't spend the second half of the campaign trying to juggle domestic duties with Thursday night Europa League fare. Juggling bowls of soup would probably be easier.

If Pochettino thinks he was harshly maligned for the team he selected in Monaco, just wait to see how people react when he picks himself in goal for the CSKA game. Tottenham goals may be greeted with a minute's silence in the home end.

As Chelsea will attest, a season without midweek European football can be just the tonic.

Hugo Lloris was again outstanding in midweek. The Frenchman has been Spurs' best performer throughout their European campaign, which in itself says a lot. Elimination despite his own best efforts will only cast more doubt on whether he will commit to a new contract, with talks at the minute having reached an impasse over the £100,000 per week deal he covets, according to the Press Association (h/t The Independent).

Murmurs persists too over whether Harry Kane could have his head turned if Spurs fail to make next season's UEFA Champions League, or if chairman Daniel Levy refuses to bend a wage structure that as it stands would prohibit the striker from joining the Premier League's highest earners.

According to the Telegraph’s Matt Law, a bun fight could ensue between Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich if Kane gives any indication he is open to quitting his boyhood club. 

There is little doubt Spurs are at a crossroads. Moving to a new stadium is not cheap; just ask Arsenal and Wenger. Having to cut cloth accordingly will be difficult at a time when the Premier League has never been more awash with money. If Spurs have ambitions beyond the top four, they will need to pay the going rate or be left behind. That's just the economics of the current climate.

Compare it to the situation at Chelsea. They face a similar scenario with their own star goalkeeper and striker, both of whom were hardly shy in making goo-goo eyes at a return to Spain over the summer.

According to Law, both Thibaut Courtois and Costa are now ready to sign contract extensions, despite already being committed to the club until 2019. 

When Conte arrived in the summer, he asked both Costa and Courtois for a little time to prove himself to them. It seems he has the pair of them eating out of the same hand that is currently keeping every Chelsea supporter well fed and content heading into an always busy end to the calendar year.

Costa has only not scored in three of the 12 Premier league games, he has started and is proving, to Conte's eternal credit, to be focusing solely on his football. He is as boisterously buoyant this term as he was bewilderingly belligerent last.

There's similar disparity in the work the two clubs did in the summer transfer window. At £30 million Moussa Sissoko cost the same as N'Golo Kante. That's not to say Kante would ever have joined Spurs, but it does give an indication of what you should expect when you pay serious money for a central midfielder.

Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley will still be smiling at the price he got for Sissoko when he's lowered into the ground.

It is still early days, so there is hope the endearingly old fashioned in style and hardworking in ethos Vincent Janssen could come good. By his own admission, he'd concede he has underwhelmed thus far, and the only thing he's proved is that a prolific season in the Eredivisie means the square root of nothing when trying to translate it in the Premier League.

Georges-Kevin N'Koudou has played less than an hour all season. Wanyama has been the pick of the summer recruits, but it's not been a window likely to be looked back on with any fondness.

Chelsea invariably shop at higher-end stores, but it's just as easy to make an expensive mistake as a moderate one. Kante has proved a revelation, as has Alonso since cementing his place in Conte's starting XI. Many perceived David Luiz's return as being a panic buy par excellence. In the past month, he's arguably been the Premier League's outstanding player.

After the Monaco defeat, Pochettino, not a man prone to bemoan the hand he has been dealt, conceded he needs to add more quality and depth to his squad. Chelsea's bench on Saturday could house any of Willian, Cesc Fabregas, John Terry, Branislav Ivanovic, Michy Batshuayi, Mikel John Obi, Oscar, Asmir Begovic or Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

Tottenham's will look like the X-Factor boy band Simon Cowell invariably makes each and every god-awful series, comprising of lads who can't sing but might appeal to teenage girls.

A return to last season's bloodiest crime scene, to re-enact one of the most flagrantly violent games in Premier League history, could prove cathartic for Tottenham and be just the ticket to pep up deflated morale.

Either that, or it will reaffirm a suspicion the two clubs are heading in opposite directions.

History may not be on Pochettino's side, but as American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson once said: "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."

He could maybe use that line to motivate his players on Saturday.

Either that or play on a loop the delight etched all over Hazard's face when he ended their title aspirations last season.