Mauricio Pochettino feels it is a joke that Tottenham must kick off against Chelsea at midday on Sunday given they will arrive home from their Europa League match against Qarabag in Azerbaijan no earlier than 5am on Friday.
The Tottenham manager said Chelsea, who play at Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Champions League on Tuesday night, will have the advantage and it is easy to imagine him cursing the Europa League. Pochettino said last April that he considered the competition to be a hindrance to a Premier League club’s domestic ambitions.
Pochettino believes that flying home after the game is, on balance, the lesser of two evils, with the other being staying the night, training at the local facilities in the morning and heading back on Friday afternoon. Tottenham chose this option last season after their Europa League last-32, second-leg defeat at Fiorentina and before the Capital One Cup final on the Sunday which, coincidentally, was against Chelsea. They lost 2-0 in the Wembley showpiece.
The Qarabag game kicks off at 6pm – which is 10pm in Baku – and the flight back to London will take approximately five and a half hours. With the post-match obligations and travel time to the airport it is difficult to see Tottenham being able to take off before 10.30pm. And then, of course, there would be the time to get home from the airport in London.
Pochettino made his feelings plain when asked to comment on the early kick-off against Chelsea. “I laugh, I only smile,” he said. “Again, it’s like the week we had three weeks ago when we played Monday night against Aston Villa, Thursday night against Anderlecht [both at home] and Sunday at Arsenal.
“Maybe it’s worse, because you need to fly nearly six hours and then there is the decision about whether to come straight back or stay. It’s very difficult because both decisions are bad. What will we do? Maybe we come straight back and give the players the day off on Friday. You never know, it might be difficult to fly from the airport. Maybe you need to wait two hours at the airport.
“For us it’s better to go straight after the game and get to England as soon as possible and maybe give Friday off for recovery. As soon as possible, we want to get back to England.”
Pochettino did admit that clubs could not have it all their own way – in other words, signing up to the riches of the Premier League’s broadcasting deal and then complaining when, because of the demands of television, they got a kick-off time that did not suit them.
“It’s always the same problem,” Pochettino said. “At the beginning of the season all the clubs in the Premier League want to play on TV because it’s a business. But when the moment comes to play we complain. The balance is difficult but we have to accept it because football is a business. But it is true that you give the advantage to the opponent.” Tottenham are top of Group J and they could afford to lose at Qarabag and still qualify,. Their final tie is at home to Monaco on 10 December. Pochettino has picked strong teams so far in the Europa League but he is expected to rest some of his stars with Chelsea in mind.
