Ahead of the Tottenham-Arsenal London derby, Mauricio Pochettino has claimed that he told Unai Emery about managing in England if he had a chance.
The pair go up against each other on Sunday with Tottenham three points ahead of Emery’s Arsenal.
Speaking ahead of the derby, our manager added that he met with Emery a year ago and they discussed managing in England (h/t Mirror):
“We were talking yes, I remember one year ago, in Bilbao, when we were in a [manager’s] congress.
“He asked me about England and of course I advised him, ‘Yes, if you have the possibility to come, sure you are going to be right.’
“I knew [he was going to be Arsenal manager before it was confirmed] — but not through him.”
Our manager was asked if he would have been that open about Emery coming to England if the Spaniard was going to manage our bitter rivals, and responded laughing:
“Yes, but he is clever enough not to tell me until he signs. He knows football very well.”
There is a lot of friendship between the pair as Emery had told Valencia to take Pochettino from Espanyol to Los Che when the Spaniard left for Spartak Moscow.
Pochettino told he rejected that offer since he was loyal to Espanyol but thanked Emery for the recommendation.
It will be interesting to see how the pair manage their sides at the weekend with a lot more than three points riding on this tie.
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Tottenham could put Arsenal further away from the top with a win, and we should expect a quality performance from Poch’s side.
