Mauricio Pochettino expects a difficult game against Chelsea on Wednesday. Photo: David Klein/Sportimage Mauricio Pochettino expects a difficult game against Chelsea on Wednesday. Photo: David Klein/Sportimage
London - Mauricio Pochettino, the Tottenham Hostpur manager, believes that neutrals will be hoping his team come out on top when Chelsea visit White Hart Lane on Wednesday.
Premier League leaders Chelsea are 10 points ahead of Tottenham, and the Argentinian thinks that most fans and rival teams will want his team to prevent Antonio Conte’s team from running away with the title. And he insists that a home win will be good for the competition as well as Tottenham’s own chances.
“I think it’s important for the Premier League and for us to try to win and try to stop them and reduce the gap for us because in the end for us the challenge is to try to be at the top,” he said.
And he added that having the nation on their side will be a welcome reversal of last season, when Leicester City were the neutral’s favourites and the majority welcomed the 2-2 draw between Chelsea and Tottenham at Stamford Bridge that ensured that Spurs could not catch Claudio Ranieri’s team.
“Yes, maybe we will feel how Leicester felt last season when all the teams were with them and against us,” Pochettino said. “Maybe they felt the same as us last season. But you know Chelsea arrive in very good shape, we too after the last few games. For me it will be a very, very tough game to try to stop them and try to reduce the gap.”
The 4-1 win at Watford was a perfect tune-up, hardly requiring Spurs to break sweat and boosting Spurs’ confidence as they won without the suspended Jan Vertonghen and Kyle Walker, both of whom will be available against Chelsea.
Pochettino said he was “very pleased, very elated with the performance. The first half was great. I think it was one of the best performances so far. It was nearly a perfect game. The shame was that we conceded a goal in the last minute but a lot of positive things, very happy. We scored from the beginning and at that moment I think the game was over. We controlled it and created some chances. Now two, three days to try to prepare in the best way, in better conditions, for the game against Chelsea.”
He also praised the two-goal contributions of Harry Kane and Dele Alli and stand-ins Kevin Wimmer and Kieran Trippier, who set up both of Kane’s goals. “Yes, I think (Harry) was very good, him and Dele, and that they scored, but the performance of the team, the average was high and I’m pleased with the performance of the whole team. Very pleased with players like Trippier and Wimmer who don’t have the opportunity to play too much but make us more competitive. Their performance was fantastic.”
Walter Mazzarri, the Watford head coach, described the result as his "lowest moment" in charge, but bemoaned the bad luck that ruled Camilo Zuniga out in the warm-up, bringing to nine the players unavailable. “If you play against Tottenham when you are missing 10 players, maybe five or six of a starting eleven, you know it won’t be easy,” he said. “I don’t want to make comparisons but if you take away five important members of any other team, they will also be in great difficulty. I wasn’t just changing one.”
And he denied that a run of six defeats in nine matches has put his job in jeopardy. “When I’ve spoken with the club, with the president, the objective has always been to avoid relegation and we are doing better than that,” he said. “Before we had the players missing we were doing something extraordinary.”