Pochettino: No one is safe from axe

Mauricio Pochettino knows Tottenham need to learn from previous mistakes in the transfer market and warned not even his signings are safe at White Hart Lane this summer.

Champions League qualification has almost certainly eluded Spurs once again as the former Argentina international’s topsy-turvy first campaign at the helm draws to a close.

A summer of change is expected in north London as they look to close the gap on the top four and a number of departures are expected, including those brought in to much fanfare after Gareth Bale’s world-record move to Real Madrid.

Roberto Soldado, Paulinho, Vlad Chiriches and Etienne Capoue have all failed to live up to the billing after what increasingly looks like a foolhardy splurge of that £85million two years ago.

“We need to look forward and we need to learn from the past,” Pochettino said.

“We have a plan for the development in the next few years and we need to deliver it.”

The vast sums spent two years ago certainly appear to be a wasted opportunity by Spurs, given current Financial Fair Play constraints.

It means the “good players,” with “great profiles”, Pochettino wants to bring in this summer will need to be offset by departures.

“I think always you need to deal with that,” the Spurs head coach said. “If you want to bring in some players, maybe you need to sell some players.”

Emmanuel Adebayor, Younes Kaboul and Andros Townsend are others potentially facing a Spurs exit, so too perhaps some of last year’s additions after Federico Fazio, Ben Davies and Benjamin Stambouli struggled to make an impression since being brought in by Pochettino.

“Always you need to analyse the last season and nobody is sure that they are staying at the club,” he said. “But this is my job – to analyse, to assess and to make a decision.

“It is not because we brought some player in and we were sure, and he was poor during the season, now he stays. If you bring in a player and the performance was not good, it is not good. You make a decision.”

Those decisions Pochettino makes without sentiment.

“You need to be professional when you make a decision,” Pochettino said.

“I am very cold on my professional side because I need to make decisions. Maybe I love a player in the personal way and as a human being, but he was poor so I need to put him out of the starting 11.

“I have to be fair with the whole squad. I need to be professional and say ’for the best of the team’.

“If with (Lionel) Messi you don’t have a very good feeling with him on the human side, but he is the best, you need to be professional.”