Confirmation of what we Spurs fans already knew

Confirmation of what we Spurs fans already knew

Sir Alex Ferguson did it, Arsene Wenger did it, now Mauricio Pochettino is going to do it. Other managers have been at clubs for a long time and built a style of play and safety for their clubs, Pulis at Stoke, Alan Curbishley at Charlton Athletic, David Moyes at Everton, but Ferguson and Wenger added regular titles and trophies.

The experience of Curbishley and Moyes demonstrate the difficulty of moving to a new club and having to start again. Curbishley never recovered from leaving Charlton, who have now been relegated to League 1 and Moyes is out of work. Neither could build what they had at another club, there were factors stopping them.

To create something the manager and the club have to be one, the club chairman has totally back the manager on the football side, obviously with the club strategy and financial strategy. The manager will have his input into strategy and will determine a football strategy that fits and all agree upon. He can then be backed to work towards that aim.

Now you might say that happens with all managers but all managers are not built the same. Just as some player are better than others so some managers are better than others. The manager has to fit the club strategy, we, for instance, wanted to build with youth. This isn't the first time we have been buying young English talent, or indeed young talent to build around. The difference now is that we have a manager who can develop them and that has been coupled with a playing style that is effective.

We now have a formula to follow and all purchases must be able to fit that formula whoever they are. It has been obvious Daniel Levy has been searching for the right man, a manager with that special something. Because of our financial situation and lack of Champions League football the top managers were all ruled out, there was no need for them to come to Tottenham, so Levy had to look below them for a manager who grow into a top manager.

You can never know whether a manager has that special something until he is in the post because you never know how he and the players will gel, nor how he will handle building a club, especially f yu have to change its mentality.

Joe Lewis backed Mauricio Pochettino and the club embarked on the biggest research project we have embarked upon for any manager to find out as much about his character that we possibly could. His coaching, the playing side could be seen, but we went far and wide to talk to people who had met or were friends with him, about his character. He came out of that exercise with flying colours.

The result is that the players have bought into his playing philosophy, those that didn't have left, Adebayor and Kaboul for instance. Mousa Dembele has been given a new lease of life. He tried to just do what he always did, stay in his comfort zone so Pochettino responded by simply not picking him. Dembele got the message and in true winning mentality style said, it's my fault, I'll have to do something about it and that he has, he has upped his game and is starting to up his game.

Lamela is a different player, Dier has moved positions, Rose was voted into the Premier League team of the season, Pochettino shows he can work with players who totally buy into the way he wants things done.

When you have that in place then moving onto another club to start again is fraught with danger. With a new stadium being built, continuity was and is essential. You can't build a new stadium with all the cost that involves and instal a new manager who will want money to spend to build the team he wants. Clearly then, from the outset Pochettino was seen as a long-term investment, a manager who will be here for years and to that end will have to be backed to build his vision.

That overriding factor of building his vision and being at a club that will allow that to happen gives Pochettino what he wants, thus, he has no need to leave Tottenham. Stories have been just that stories invented to sell papers.

In an interview with Sky Sports he touched on this subject and it shows he intends to be at Spurs for a long time, assuming the chairman doesn't change. That was why he left Southampton, the chairman changed and the club chose a new direction, he failed to receive the assurances in January about players and transfers so he decided then to move on at the end of the season. The Tottenham opportunity was there and the rest is history as they say.
Sir Alex Ferguson knew you had to have a successful business off the pitch to have sustained success on it and Pochettino knows the same, it's why Pochettino is happy has found the right man in Daniel Levy. The pair are our dream team.

---