Mauricio Pochettino has had a go at the Premier League for starting the season early as Tottenham are without a number of key players after their efforts in the World Cup.
The Argentine saw his team defeat AS Roma 4-1 in their opening International Champions Cup fixture, thanks to goals from Lucas Moura and Fernando Llorente.
The Spurs manager was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying:
“The players need to rest, the players need a period to recover after more than 10 months competition.
“I’m not going to complain about them having that. I completely understand that they need 20/21 days to be away from football.”
Pochettino did, however, add that starting the league would be difficult for the team due to the numerous absences in the side.
“We cannot delay the start of the season. We start earlier than other leagues and countries. There’s nothing I can do.”
The Argentine also added that some of our rivals would be facing similar problems and there is nothing anyone can change with regards to this.
The boss does have a valid point as we had nine players taking part in the semi-final of the World Cup and most of them will not arrive until the first week of August.
It would provide them very little time to get into the groove and only a miracle and a hint of desperation would see us playing the likes of Harry Kane, Hugo Lloris, Dele Alli or Jan Vertonghen in the first game against Newcastle.
