They call it the Look of Eagles in the equine world and when Mauricio Pochettino felt the footballing equivalent last Monday, it was a thing of beauty and inspiration – not least because of the timing. The Tottenham Hotspur manager took in the body language of his players as they prepared for the Premier League fixture at Stoke City and he knew that victory was assured.
“I knew before the game that we would win,” Pochettino said. “You could feel it from the players. It was fantastic before the game. When we arrived at the stadium, in the warm-up – you could feel that they were ready to compete. The trust between each of them was fantastic. I thought it was impossible that we wouldn’t win the three points.
“When you achieve that, it’s great and that’s the objective. We need to fight now not to lose that feeling. Have we had it before? We’ve had different feelings in different games, and you always try to feel that. But it was very obvious last Monday that the team was feeling good.”
Spurs won 4-0, and it was the manner of the victory as much as the three points that sent out the message. After the leaders, Leicester City, had slipped up in their 2-2 home draw with West Ham United the previous day, the response to the scent of blood spoke volumes.
Harry Kane had posted a photograph on Instagram of lions about to hunt down their prey and Spurs ran the game from the first whistle. It was one of their most impressive performances of the season, particularly given the circumstances of the title race, and the only doubt came to concern their margin of victory.
Pochettino’s team are once again set to play their fixture after that of Leicester. They welcome West Bromwich Albion to White Hart Lane on Monday night, with the Argentinian referencing how “football is also a business”. In other words, the broadcasters’ scheduling must be respected and not complained about.
The manager and his players were more than interested onlookers during Leicester’s 4-0 home win against Swansea City on Sunday afternoon, and the lack of control over their title destiny is, of course, the greatest frustration. But they have shown that whatever Leicester do, they will concentrate on looking after their own affairs.
Leicester did not drop points at Sunderland a fortnight ago, winning 2-0, which cranked up the pressure on Tottenham. But they responded by defeating Manchester United 3-0 at White Hart Lane later in the afternoon.
The impression is of a team that is thriving on the chase, and one in peak condition – physically as well as mentally. A couple of statistics illustrate that, if anything, Pochettino’s players are fitter now than they were at the beginning of the season.
In Tottenham’s first four league matches, they ran, on average, a combined 112.7km and made 483 sprints per match. In their last four games, they covered fractionally less ground – 111.3km per match, because of a surprisingly low figure of 98.8km against United – but sprinted 540 times.
A criticism of Pochettino has been that his teams tend to fade in the final months of a season because of his intensive fitness programmes. That is not the case with this one and the manager suggested it was other teams that were feeling the strain. “We are strong and we are at the same level [as at the start of the season],” he said. “Maybe the difference is the opponents. To be consistent has always been our objective and I think the data is similar from the beginning to now. We can now see the finish line [which is motivating].
“When we are strong in the legs, we are strong in the head and the motivation is good. We are sure that we are in a very good level and a good moment, and we need to fight for the last four games to achieve big things.”
Pochettino feels that there is excellent balance to his starting XI and when he assessed how they had scored more and conceded fewer than Leicester – their goal difference is significantly better than that of their rivals – he said it was “impossible to explain why we are not in first position”.
To be there at the last, when it matters, Pochettino wants his players to stay calm and play their natural games. It was put to him whether, in light of Jamie Vardy’s sending-off for Leicester against West Ham, he might ask them to be careful. “You can’t send that message to the players,” Pochettino said. “If you do that, you put the idea in their mind and they are inhibited. They need to be free to play. We feel free, without pressure.”
