The Changes Mauricio Pochettino Must Make to Get Tottenham into the Top 4
Three months before he walked out on Queens Park Rangers, I met with Harry Redknapp at the club’s training ground in west London.
At the time, despite QPR’s struggles, he appeared to still be enjoying managing in the Premier League, even if it meant getting out of bed at 4 a.m. each morning to drive to the capital from his home on the South Coast.
But you could also sense he still harboured deep regrets at how he was forced to leave his previous job further up the table at Tottenham Hotspur in the summer of 2012.
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“I enjoyed my time there, and to be honest, I was choked when I had to leave,” he told me last October.
I asked him if Tottenham had acted too rashly? “They did what they wanted to do,” he replied, but then he couldn’t resist adding, “But they haven’t been in the top four since me. I finished in the top four twice in three seasons.”
Three years after Redknapp was surprisingly pushed out of White Hart Lane, Tottenham have had to get used to life outside the top four.
In the last three seasons, they have finished fifth, sixth, and after Sunday’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester City, they are likely to finish in one of these positions again this season.
More alarmingly, Tottenham, now on 58 points with three games remaining, cannot beat last season's total of 69 points and could actually fall some way short of it.
The sacking of a man who took Tottenham in to the promised land of the top four and to their first-ever Champions League quarter-final looks increasingly ill conceived.
Redknapp’s ostensibly more glamorous successors Andre Villas-Boas, Tim Sherwood and now the current manager Mauricio Pochettino this season have all failed to emulate his achievements.
For the last three seasons Tottenham have been treading water in the Premier League, finishing exactly where you would expect, and that won’t change this season.
There have been glimpses of progress under Pochettino this season, but not enough, and it won’t have escaped the attention of the Tottenham board that Southampton have actually improved this season since he left them.
This season’s wins over Chelsea and Arsenal at White Hart Lane act as beacons of hope, proving Tottenham can beat the very best with exhilarating and attacking football.
When Tottenham have executed Pochettino’s pressing and high-tempo game, there have been grounds for optimism.
But then they can soon be dashed with dispiriting home defeats to teams who will finish below them this season, including Stoke City, Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle United.
In many ways, Tottenham’s season has been saved by the surprise emergence of Harry Kane, who became only the 10th player to score more than 30 goals in all competitions in the club’s entire history, but he was a player Pochettino didn’t trust with his first league start until November.
Pochettino should be lauded for eventually giving Kane his chance, but overall, his record in the transfer market and his ability to recognise talent should be a cause for concern.
After Tottenham’s unprecedented spending in the summer of 2013 with the proceeds of the Gareth Bale record sale, the club spent a lot less last summer. But the truth is, none of the five players Pochettino purchased, including Ben Davies, Federico Fazio and Benjamin Stambouli for a combined £27 million, have made a major impact this season.
Pochettino’s main success has come in improving many of the players he inherited, including Kane, Ryan Mason, Danny Rose, Christian Eriksen, Nacer Chadli and Nabil Bentaleb.
It is crucial Pochettino makes some astute additions during the summer to complement these players for next season.
The brilliant Hugo Lloris, whom it is essential Tottenham hold on to this summer, needs greater protection from the defence in front of him. Though Eric Dier has shown promise, Tottenham need to invest in a more reliable and established partner for Jan Vertonghen.
Tottenham have scored only four fewer goals than fourth-placed Manchester United, but they have conceded a sizeable 15 goals more than them. Close that gap and Tottenham can elevate themselves into the top four next season.
In the Premier League, Kane has had ample support from Eriksen and Chadli, who have both provided 10 goals each, but Tottenham need their other strikers to start contributing as well. Until they do, Spurs remain vulnerable to Kane picking up an injury.
Roberto Soldado and Emmanuel Adebayor limp in behind this trio with only three league goals between them and need to be replaced with a more reliable striker to assist Kane.
The Europa League obviously drained Tottenham this season, forcing them to play 10 extra games compared to Manchester United, and for no obvious reward or benefit.
It might be heresy to a club with Tottenham’s proud European tradition, but next season, the Europa League needs to be taken less seriously if they want to return to the top four.
The culture of the club needs to change and return to what it briefly was under Redknapp, when Tottenham were bold and were expected to win games and finish in the top four.
For too long in the Premier League Tottenham have been seen as an easy touch, and as Roy Keane memorably said last autumn, as reported by Jochan Embley of the London Evening Standard, the former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s team talks to his sides when he played Tottenham consisted of three simple and cutting words: “Lads, it’s Tottenham.”
At Southampton, Pochettino was hailed as a guru and an innovator; he now needs to rediscover his old self, because so far at White Hart Lane he has, for the most part, looked like just another Spurs manager.
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