Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino has revealed how he convinced Tottenham players to believe in what he is building at the club, despite the lack of signings last summer.
Spurs were the only Premier League team to not add resources to their squad ahead of the 2018/19 season, causing some of the existing squad to have their heads turned by other clubs.
In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais ahead of the club's Champions League semi-final, the Argentinian spoke of some conversations that had taken place ahead of the new season.
Behind the scenes of Spurs' training sessions at Ajax & that awkward Pochettino press conference
"They called me during the World Cup and said: “Coach, if this team wants me I’m leaving.” “Speak with the chairman.” “Yeah, but I’m telling you because I’m interested in playing for another team.” “Good, good.” And I said to the chairman: “I don’t trust the players who want to stay, not the ones who want to leave, because if they want to join a bigger club most of the time it’s because they are ambitious and want to win titles.
"That is the type of footballer Tottenham need because this player is going to give everything he has.” We started preseason and closed the books. Those who wanted moves didn’t get them and there were no new signings."
The Spurs manager insisted that there were two roads that the club could have gone down during the summer.
"We had a meeting and they had a couple of options. We either start from scratch or carry on from where we’ve been the last two years. We were honest with them. “Guys, everyone here is looking for something else, we all have our individual objectives.” I promised to judge them from this day forward. I wasn’t going to think that they called me to ask for a move, or if they didn’t play last season, or if they’d behaved incorrectly. “The people that work the hardest will play. I couldn’t care less what happened yesterday. If you are committed, we carry on. If not, go train with the youth team and in January we’ll look for a solution!”
"I promised to look at them as if they’d just joined the club. If not, it would’ve been impossible. Because if we carry over the baggage from the last four years, how do you manage that? How do you create a comfortable environment? Everyone started at the same level and that’s allowed us to be here today. What we’ve achieved is more important than winning a title."
What the Ajax fans did to disrupt Tottenham's preparations for Champions League semi-final clash
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