Tottenham showing signs of kicking on at their strongest - but have they left themselves too much to do?
Mauricio Pochettino was quick to praise fitness guru Jesus Perez for Tottenham hitting peak condition ahead of the gruelling December run, but he is all too aware of how much ground they have to make up
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Your support makes all the difference.For all the satisfaction of victory at Wembley and staying alive in the Champions League, Mauricio Pochettino was actually in rather spiky mood as he defended his decisions to rest match-winner Christian Eriksen, until it came to mentioning the man that is the true brain behind Tottenham Hotspur’s physical conditioning: assistant Jesus Perez.
“We are not machines,” Pochettino argued, before his facial expression turned to a smile, and he smacked the back of the man beside him. “Well, maybe Jesus is.”
He certainly has Spurs’ fitness programmed to mechanical precision.
This isn’t the first time that Pochettino has made a point of directing praise to Perez, because this is far from the first time that Tottenham have suddenly began to look properly convincing around the start of December. It has already happened for four seasons in a row, looks set to continue that pattern this season, and looks somewhat ominous for Arsenal on Sunday and everyone Spurs face from here on in.
This is when their points return begins to really ratchet up. In some ways, the 1-0 victory over Inter Milan as well as every match-winning player are representative of this.
After an unsatisfactory start to both the group and the fixture against Inter, and with Eriksen not even fully ready to start the game, the playmaker was introduced to win it and maybe yet see Spurs get through to the last 16 when all had previously looked lost only two matches ago.
It would be cutting it close, but it would also be reflective of Pochettino cutting his cloth to suit. One of the reasons that the manager and Perez have to be so calculated and precise with the physical conditioning of their players is because they don’t have the resources of their wealthier rivals, and generally see a drop-off beyond the first 15 or 16 players picked. That problem was all the more pronounced this summer, due to the World Cup, and was one arguable reason for their slow start in the Champions League.
“After four years at Tottenham, I’m always fighting with the same question,” Pochettino argued. “No one can explain, no one can give us the secret. It’s a very difficult thing to be ready to compete in your best way and then connect everything. It’s only about time – time. With no pre-season, we had nine players involved to the end of the World Cup. It’s always the same. If you give rest 20 days, it’s too much rest. If you don’t give rest, you upset the players. It was so difficult for me, impossible, impossible.
“As I told you, the most difficult season for us started in the summer – massive challenge. We didn’t sign (players), all the players arrived late, no time to prepare the team. Everything new for us. It was a massive challenge but now we’re happy. We improve our results, our stats, we’re fighting and in a good position in the Champions League.”
That does deserve a lot of credit, especially since Pochettino almost wrote off the potential of progress after the 2-2 draw away to PSV Eindhoven.
He had been so downbeat after that match that he was slumped in the dug-out after the game, just staring at his phone. Now, everything looks better.
The only lingering worry is whether it will also look like a typical recent Tottenham season in another regard. As brilliant as they can be, and especially in those runs, they can often give themselves just that bit too much to do – as was most notoriously the case in the 2015/16 and 2016/17 title challenges. The runs just came that bit too late.
The hope is that isn’t the case this time, particularly as they will have to do a lot if they have to inflict what would only be Barca’s second home defeat in the Champions League in nine years.
Then again, a difficult domestic campaign has illustrated the Catalans are not machines either.
“We have our belief and faith we can win,” Pochettino said.
They should also, finally, have form. It’s how they’re programmed.
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