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Mauricio Pochettino has suggested that Tottenham Hotspur lack the mentality of champions.
Spurs lost to Burnley at Turf Moor on Saturday and play Chelsea on Wednesday, and the Argentine insists that it may take a decade to turn the club into title-winners.
What’s the word?
Spurs’ defeat to Burnley leaves them five points adrift of both Liverpool and Manchester City, with games against Chelsea and Arsenal to come this week.
Tottenham have yet to draw a game this season but lost seven times; City have lost four, Liverpool just once.
Those losses have included defeats to the likes of Watford, Wolves and the Clarets, along with Manchester United and Arsenal and the top two teams.
And Pochettino says the defeat at Vicarage Road, where Spurs led, is evidence that they are not yet ready to lift the biggest prize in English football.
“The example is Watford,” he told reporters, as quoted by The Independent.
“One-nil [up], and then in the last 20 minutes we threw away the game, because of us, not because of Watford.
“If you watch the game again you know that is what happened, and my worry is what happened and to change that is not only five-year work, maybe it is 10-year work to change that thing that happened here.”
Asked about the Burnley game, Pochettino said “it is unacceptable to lose”.
He added: “If you lose you cannot after say ‘No, we are a real contender, in the last 10 or 12 games you must be strong and you have to dominate and show you are a real contender’.
“We showed on Saturday that we are a good team yes, we have good quality yes, but it’s not enough to win a title like the Premier League and that is the reality.
“I think you think the same and the players think the same and everyone thinks the same.
“If you’re not going to be able to beat Burnley playing for the title I think it’s impossible to think that you are going to win the title.
“Maybe you might win afterwards but because another loses the opportunity to win, not because you push to win.”
Bottlers?
This will do little to dispel the misguided notion that Pochettino has yet to shake off the “bottling” tag that has long plagued Spurs.
The fact of the matter is that they are currently ahead of schedule in terms of their development.
The manager deserves a lot of credit for transforming the club from top-four contenders to title challengers but this kind of message is the wrong one to send out.
The likes of Harry Kane, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli are approaching their peaks and suggesting that they are not currently made of the stuff required to win titles is counter-intuitive.
If Pochettino is right, Kane may be 35 before Spurs win the Premier League. He may well decide that he cannot wait that long, and that decision may be traced back to this very press conference.