www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/feb/02/tottenham-pochettino-harry-kane-top-four-title
Tottenham fans should trust Pochettino, a manager who doesn’t need to spend
A failure to sign cover for Harry Kane has left many at White Hart Lane disappointed, but with a top-four place theirs to lose and a title shot a possibility, the Argentinian deserves some faith
Let’s start with a statistic, because it is a pretty eye-catching one. Across his four transfer windows at Tottenham Hotspur,
Mauricio Pochettino is £6.3m in credit on permanent fees spent.
Daniel Levy, the chairman, is loving Pochettino right now because of how the manager has the club on course for the Champions League and, who knows, possibly the Premier League title, too, and to have done it on a shoestring makes his work even more admirable.
More than anything, Pochettino has fired a feel-good factor, having shaped a vibrant, hungry young team that can go toe-to-toe with any other in England. As the ludicrously over-blown pre-match montage at White Hart Lane reminds us, the game is about the glory and Pochettino has allowed Tottenham’s fans to dream, which, ultimately, is one of the best things about following a club.
On Monday, as the clock ticked down towards the transfer deadline, Pochettino effectively made a demand of those supporters. He asked them, once again, to trust him. With everything that they have.
The calls for him to sign an out-and-out striker in support of Harry Kane were almost hysterical last summer but there was nobody available who he liked enough and, crucially, would fit into his playing style. And so he rolled the dice.
There is a little joke in the White Hart Lane press room before matches when the line-ups are handed out: “Harry gets the nod up front.” Kane, of course, is the only established, senior option. Everybody connected to the club held their breath over the first-half of the season and, happily, Kane stayed the course and he delivered. The 22-year-old has lacerated any fears that he might somehow have been a one-season wonder, after his breakthrough last time out.
Pochettino, though, rolled the dice even harder on Monday because, unlike on 1 September, the fans can now sense the glory. It is within their grasp and, frankly, a top-four finish is theirs to throw away.
With the increased expectation comes the greater fear of failure and it has crystallised around Kane who, more than ever, carries their hopes on his shoulders. It is a fair bet that Twitter would break if Kane were to suffer a serious injury and Tottenham missed out on the Champions League. Could you imagine?
Pochettino said before last summer’s transfer deadline that he wanted proper cover for Kane and he used a line that got a smile. “It’s like when you are in love with a lady – there are a lot of women around the world but you want only one,” he said. At the time, he wanted Saido Berahino from West Bromwich Albion
but Levy could not agree the deal.
On 3 December, Pochettino again said that the club were tracking
strikers ahead of the winter window and he also accepted that none of his back-up options – Son Heung-min, Nacer Chadli and Clinton Njie – were specialists in the position. Njie has since been ruled out until April with a knee injury that required surgery.
But Pochettino, to draw on the famous old Ian Holloway analogy, has never been about to bundle any old thing into the back of a taxi when the night is done. He is not a desperate guy, even with his mates egging him on.
Levy was very keen for him to sign a striker at the last moment in the summer – he said that he could get Charlie Austin, who was then at Queens Park Rangers, only for Pochettino to say ‘No’ – and, once again in January, it was Levy who was eager to do the business.
Tottenham have scouted loads of strikers, including Jonathan Calleri, the 22-year-old Argentinian, who is now at São Paulo. The club were among those to watch Oumar Niasse extensively over the first half of the season – the Senegalese joined
Everton for £13.5m on deadline day – while there was no chance of them, or indeed anyone, getting Berahino during this past window.
There was also Fulham’s Moussa Dembélé, the 19-year-old Frenchman, who passed a medical with them on Saturday, with a view to a £6m transfer with a loan-back to Craven Cottage for the remainder of the season. With the consent of the player and the framework of the deal in place, Tottenham then moved to scrap the loan-back bit, which had always been set in stone from Fulham’s side. It was a liberty, Fulham felt, and they called everything off.
Dembélé was the one that Pochettino wanted but he has lost no sleep over him or the fact that Kane’s burden feels as though it has just got heavier. Kane, lest anyone forget, is prized for his durability and stamina.
Yes, Pochettino would have liked somebody else up front but not just anybody and the chemistry within the dressing-room that he has concocted remains of over-riding importance. Nothing or nobody can come in from the outside to upset that.
If it is a thing of great delicacy, then there are plenty of people who would argue that there is a tipping point between Son and Chadli being able to do a job up front and doing it brilliantly.
Pochettino can counter by saying that the role of the No9 has changed, modern attacking tactics are much more fluid and he would back himself to find the collective solution, involving Son and/or Chadli, if the worst came to the worst and Kane were injured.
If any manager has credit in the bank and the right to expect a bit of faith to be shown in him, it is surely Pochettino.
