It can be funny, the stuff that sticks with you over time. In the case of Mauricio Pochettino, there is one memory in particular. It dates to September 2016 and the moments before a Tottenham press conference, when a few of us were watching an old video.
The idea with these things is to find some kind of reference point before taking your seat and then hoping for a little gold in the manager’s recollections. On this given occasion, ahead of a match that was approaching between Spurs and Manchester City, it was geared around his past duels with Pep Guardiola, which had led us to replays of a game in 1997 when Pochettino’s Espanyol beat Barcelona. You can see how our wheels were turning.
But early in the clip a different encounter caught the eye — it was Pochettino thundering into a challenge on Ronaldo, El Fenomeno, the original and best. Wouldn’t get away with it now, obviously. Pochettino went through the ball, through the man, and his boot ended up shoulder high. Ronaldo looked like a man who had received the letter and received the postie’s van, too.
Anyway, while we were watching, Pochettino came down the stairs at Tottenham’s training ground and joined the viewing party. Staring at the laptop, he couldn’t keep the grin off his face. At impact, he clapped his hands hard and laughed the mad laugh of a former defender who enjoyed the age of the reducer.
It’s a thought that returned in the past few days when he made comments in the US about the bloated state of Chelsea’s squad just a couple of weeks out from the new season. He spoke of the ‘massive’ and unbalanced touring party of 29 players, of the ‘mess’ that it will inevitably cause for the dynamics and harmony, and the difficult ‘mood’ that comes with leaving out three, four or five men per game, especially when the meaningful fixtures get underway. Pointedly, he said: ‘I need to make clear we don’t need a big squad.’
Mauricio Pochettino’s 2016 Tottenham press conference has always stuck with me
It was geared around Pochettino’s (left) past duels with City manager Pep Guardiola (right)
It is hard to know exactly what we are dealing with here – whether it was one of those scenarios where he was talking openly to reporters, or, one of those where he was talking to reporters but really he was addressing those above and around him. The decision makers. The true architects of a chaos that runs the risk of wrecking another campaign before it has begun.
Again, hard to know, but quite easy to imagine, even a month into his formal tenure, because this is the Chelsea of Todd Boehly. Agents laugh about it. So do rival clubs. About the madness of an indiscriminate and disjointed approach to recruitment that meant a club could spend £600million in a year and become far, far worse for it.
And that makes you think about reducers — reducing the squad and putting a reducer on Boehly.
Pochettino is an intelligent man and a fantastic coach – he saw what the place did to another who fit that description, Graham Potter, and what has been said about his players needing to change in the corridors.
He would have noted, also, the exasperation in Frank Lampard’s tone when he was back there. They are men who know what it is to walk into a Chelsea dressing room and do a double-take: is this a Premier League football club or the fields of Glastonbury the day after the music stopped? Are you a manager or a sifter of litter?
All of those roads lead to Boehly and the shambles of his time at Stamford Bridge. The tense here is key – present, not past. Pochettino can only work with the squad he is given, and for whatever Boehly and his advisors may have learned in 15 months, it is a squad whose shortcomings still leap off the page. It is a squad that has seen 13 players cut this summer and not enough brought in to add some balance.
An inexperienced squad that has only five outfielders above the age of 24. A squad that has added Christopher Nkunku and Nicolas Jackson, both of whom have looked good up front on their summer tour, but will have to do an awful lot of heavy lifting if no more strikers are forthcoming. A squad that has lost N’Golo Kante, Mason Mount, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Mateo Kovacic from the midfield and has only Enzo Fernández and Conor Gallagher as senior options to fill the gaps.
If Brighton don’t budge on Moisés Caicedo, that smells like the makings of another crisis. In July. In the final fortnight before they open against Liverpool.
A few of us were watching Pochettino’s Espanyol beat LaLiga giants Barcelona on a laptop
Pochettino (pictured managing Espanyol) joined us to watch a clip of him thundering into a challenge on Ronaldo, El Fenomeno, the original and best
So when Pochettino spoke the other day of needing to be ‘tough’, it felt like there was another dimension to it. Tough with those players he won’t use, sure. But he must also be tough with Boehly and the other members of the brains trust at Chelsea.
The latter point brings to mind Potter and some of the nonsense spouted way back when about him lacking sufficient anger on the touchline. The perception was that he couldn’t be tough, which his former players at Brighton and Swansea would dispute, but there were also more plausible doubts about his ability to manage upwards. About how far he would be willing to go in fronting up to those who created a portion of the mess and say so.
With Pochettino, fewer of those questions exist. He has been around the more immovable objects in football, from Lionel Messi to Neymar to Kylian Mbappe to Daniel Levy, and there is no ambiguity in how he sees his place in that ecosystem. He believes he too is a big beast and now he needs to show it, because problems in summer rarely look any better in the autumn and winter, especially at Chelsea.
To an extent, Pochettino has already done that – in his first press conference upon arriving, he said Boehly could only enter the dressing room with his permission. Not the full Ronaldo treatment, but a solid reducer. With the current squad situation, and knowing the importance of this stop in his career, having achieved only a moderate return from his 18 months at PSG, the old bruiser might need to go a little further. A little harder. A little higher with the studs. A little more like the guy who knew how to play the ball, but could always see the benefit in sending a message to the man as well.
Pochettino is intelligent – he saw what the place did to another who fit that description, Graham Potter, and what has been said about his players needing to change in the corridors
Chelsea have seen 13 players cut this summer after Todd Boehly (above) inflated their squad
However, Chelsea have not brought in enough players to balance the squad after losing the likes of N’Golo Kante, Mason Mount, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Mateo Kovacic from the midfield
MBAPPE BITES BACK AT PSG
Football clubs are brutal. Football clubs are an embodiment of the Hunger Games. Football clubs will trade players like cattle and in a heartbeat will discard those that do not make the grade.
With that in mind, Kylian Mbappe refusing to meet Al Hilal, and thereby costing PSG £259million if he goes to Real Madrid for nothing next year, feels an awful lot like karma. Not necessarily what Jean-Marc Bosman had in mind, but mildly amusing in its way.
Kylian Mbappe refusing to meet Al Hilal, and thereby costing PSG £259million if he goes to Real Madrid for nothing next year, feels an awful lot like karma
NO BETTER INSPIRATION FOR PEATY
A year out from the Olympics and the boffins have been at it again with their predictions. Most interestingly, Gracenote’s virtual medal table has Adam Peaty failing to make it three straight gold medals in the 100m breaststroke.
It makes a lot of sense up to a point — his motivation has undulated wildly of late, because how do you inspire the man who has won everything? And that’s before you factor in the past week, in which his heir-apparent, China’s Qin Haiyang, won three world titles and got ever closer to Peaty’s records.
Qin might well be the man to break one of Team GB’s greatest Olympic streaks. But for my money, it is far more likely that Qin just relit a fire he won’t be able to extinguish in Paris.
Gracenote’s virtual medal table has Adam Peaty (pictured above) failing to make it three straight gold medals in the 100m breaststroke
Qin Haiyang might well be the man to break one of Team GB’s greatest Olympic streaks
