Mauricio Pochettino has admitted that Tottenham are in need of significant strengthening if they are to compete in the Premier League and European competitions at the same time. The comments from the manager came in the wake of Tottenham’s 2-1 loss against Monaco. The result knocked out the English outfit from the Champions League group stages even with one game still left in the competition. They are now facing an even bigger fight to even qualify for the Europa League.
CSKA Moscow are in contention with Spurs for the third spot in the group, which will provide access to the Europa League knockout stages.
Pochettino would have been very much aware of the difficulties of managing focus on two different competitions week in and week out. It was going to be made even more difficult by commitments in EFL Cup. It has proved to be the case, as Spurs have never been comfortable managing games in both competitions.
At a time when the top clubs are capable of rotating quite significantly for European games and still maintain the quality in the team, Spurs do not seem capable of that right now. Pochettino is also not helped by the long list of injuries which continues to affect the team.
There is no doubt that Tottenham have closed the gap to many of the top clubs in the last two years. However, Pochettino says that this defeat shows that the North London outfit still have a long way to go. According to Sky Sports, he said:
“It is good for us to learn from this for the future if we are going to be in the Champions League next season and try to compete in that and the Premier League, maybe we need to make changes.
“I think it’s better to be in the Europa League, it would be good for the club. We are in a process and a period where we need to improve. To play Saturday then Tuesday-Wednesday is like you play the Premier League continuously. We struggled to be ready to compete in every game.”
Spurs will be looking to recover from this massive setback by focusing on the Premier League and FA Cup commitments from here on. Even though Spurs are the only team in the Premier League not to suffer a defeat so far, their form has plummeted since the win over Manchester City at the start of October. Since then, the team has managed a run of just one win in nine matches.
Pochettino will know that the league form has to improve rather quickly, or Spurs face the risk of being out of top four contention by the end of January.
A visit to Stamford Bridge in order to take on Chelsea awaits the club this weekend. It will be yet another tough encounter, but there are certainly positives to take out of the Monaco game. Harry Kane would certainly be one of them; since returning from a long term injury layoff, the England international has scored four goals in his last three matches. It may have required a penalty in order to find the back of the net against Monaco, but Kane received poor service throughout the game.
As the game against Monaco was played on Tuesday night, Spurs will not be affected by any tiredness issues on Saturday against Chelsea.
