I woke up yesterday morning to the shocking but expected news of the sacking of Pochettino as the coach of Tottenham FC. This piece of news on a good day, wouldn’t have brought out a reaction from me, but it did and for reasons I will highlight here.
Mauricio Pochettino who spent five positive years at Tottenham Hotspur, was a coach that brought Tottenham into the league of the premiership and European big boys. He came to Tottenham to build the team into a team that competes for trophies at the highest level. He came to Tottenham to awaken the spirit of positive football in them. He came to Tottenham to give their young but talented players the belief and impetus to face the big boys in Europe without fear. In his time at Spurs, he turned Tottenham into one of the powerful teams in England.
Now as an Arsenal fan, I am expected to be happy that he has been sacked because he made them so competitive, that they ended some seasons higher that Arsenal, but I won’t be happy; I rather just remain neutral here. I hope my stand on his sacking will be respected.
I remember the game we played against them in the premiership last season when we came back from 2 goals down to win the game by 4 goals to 2. In that game, we played one of our best games of the season and it was a thing of joy to end the game with a win. After the game, Pochettino was quoted to have said Arsenal was so excited to win the game because they probably thought they were not going to win. He had so much built the Spurs into a formidable team that nobody wanted to play them. The height of it all was when they played in the finals of last seasons’ UEFA Champions league! Spurs were definitely on a high.
However, anything that has a beginning must surely have an end and Pochettino’s’ end at Tottenham started towards the end of last season, when they started dropping points at will and this form continued right into this new season. Every team has their peak period and their doom period; what is needed for the team to remain strong, despite the period they find themselves in.
Spurs have taken a difficult but needed decision to sack their most successful coach in recent times; a thing their North London neighbor finds hard to do. I wish them luck in the future, and I also welcome the ‘Special One’ back to England.
Can anybody remember any other special game Arsenal played against Pochettino?
Sylvester Kwentua