Cup glory not enough to satisfy Poch ambitions

Mauricio Pochettino believes winning trophies would not have saved him from the sack as Tottenham manager if the club were not competing at the top end of the Premier League.

Pochettino has turned Spurs into one of the top clubs in England, challenging for the league title and progressing in the Champions League, but is regularly criticised for failing to win any silverware.

The Argentinian has always insisted that winning a cup competition like the FA Cup or the Carabao Cup does not put the club at the level he wants to take them to.

The clamour for Spurs to win has always been more frantic from outside the club and Pochettino is more concerned about how the club perform in the league and Champions League.

And that was again his message as Spurs kick-off their FA Cup campaign with a visit to League Two Tranmere tonight.

“My ambition is to win the Champions League one day with Tottenham or the Premier League,” he said.

“Sometimes the people take it wrong, my words. ‘Oh the manager doesn’t want to win the FA Cup or disrespects the competition the Carabao Cup or FA Cup’.

“No, it is the opposite. I respect a lot.

“But my ambition is to win the Champions League one day or the Premier League.

“To win the Carabao Cup and be in the middle of the table in the Premier League I think today we are not talking how we are talking here. I think I was sacked a few years ago. With two or three Carabao Cups or FA Cups.

“If you don’t finish how we have finished in the last three seasons and (win) the FA Cup, I don’t know if Daniel (Levy, chairman) would have too much patience with me or is very nice to say, ‘OK you’re 10th in the Premier League’ and give you a new contract.”

Pochettino was happy to reel off a list of clubs who have won trophies in the last few years but are now struggling in the league.

“I think the people want trophies and (think) that it means you are very successful,” he added.

“Of course, many in some projects, in some clubs, if you don’t win a trophy, you fail. But in our project at Tottenham we are completely different – if you say if you don’t win a trophy, it’s a failure … we have bigger things than to focus only to win a trophy.

“But that doesn’t mean that we are not focused on trying to win against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup or in the FA Cup. But you need a lot of coincidences to win sometimes.

There are a lot of examples. Swansea won the Carabao Cup when we arrived to Southampton and today they are in the second division. Wigan won the FA Cup and they are in the Championship.

“Of course, we are the first that we want to win a trophy but that doesn’t mean that it is going to be a successful thing or put Tottenham in a different level.

“If my ambition in Tottenham is only win the Carabao Cup or FA Cup, with all the respect for that, I think my ambition does not match the ambition of a club like Tottenham.”

Christian Eriksen is key to Spurs’ hopes of realising those ambitions but Pochettino accepts the Dane has the right to ponder a future away from the club.

Eriksen is out of contract in the summer of 2020 but if he does not sign a new deal by the end of this season, Spurs might be forced to listen to offers in order to get true value for the Denmark international.

Eriksen, 26, would not be out of place in any of the top sides in Europe and might be able to earn a lucrative deal elsewhere.

“I’m not a person that suffers too much in this type of situation because football is dynamic,” Pochettino said.

“Football is about interests that as managers or head coaches we sometimes cannot manage.

“It depends on many things in this business — different parties that have interests.

“Of course, Christian Eriksen is such an important player for Tottenham and of course as a person or as a professional coach or manager, you would like to have this type of player with you.

“But in the end it’s a negotiation and there’s different parties that have different interests.

It will be fantastic if Christian Eriksen is going to be committed with the club for a long-term, and if not it’s his right to do what he wants to do.

“He is happy here, he is showing his commitment. Then what is going to happen in between him and the club is not only in our hands.”