Mauricio Pochettino says the last week proves Tottenham are still not mature enough as they were further dragged into the scrap for the top four places.
Reality bit for Tottenham where it all began in England for Pochettino as Southampton came from behind to beat Spurs for just the second time since their return to the Premier League in 2012.
The Argentine has talking of the ‘perception’ and the ‘reality’ all season. Pochettino’s perception is that his side are title contenders, a perception which has led to talk of bottling the League once more.
The reality? That this is Tottenham’s level in seasons where Manchester City and Liverpool can pump tens, even hundreds, of millions into their squads each summer while Tottenham have not signed a player since Lucas Moura arrived in January 2018.
After putting in perhaps their most professional performance of Pochettino’s tenure at the club in Germany on Tuesday night, Tottenham performed for just 45 minutes at Southampton and the Spurs manager said the club must improve in every department.
"We still have a lot of work to do. That showed that we are not mature enough," Pochettino said.
"That showed that to be in the last level as a club you need more effort, more quality and to increase your capacity of commitment. Everything, you need to increase if you want to play in the last level and be one of the best clubs in the world.
"That is why we were talking a lot in the last five years, it is not easy to build a plan or a project, a strategy to arrive and to be one of the best clubs in Europe or England and it is so easy to talk when we have in the past some good performances.
"I think we need to be careful how we assess ourselves. It is so important to live in the reality, too much in the last few years we have been living in the perception, now today is the reality. The reality is two faces, different faces."
Pochettino will now take his players to Barcelona for a training camp before they break up to go on international duty later this month.
