It’s time to start questioning Mauricio Pochettino’s future at Spurs

With Spurs struggling away from home, getting knocked out of cups, and failing to live up to their potential again: Is Mauricio Pochettino heading toward the sack?

4 months ago, Spurs lined up at the Wanda Metropolitano for the Champions League final, knowing that the future of their club was changed forever, no matter the result. Sure, a victory would have helped, but the cash influx, the attention, and the noise that came from qualifying for the final itself would surely stick around and benefit the club in the long run.

Spurs lost that final to a sensational Liverpool side, but it was supposed to be the start of something special – a new golden age for the club, to put it another way. With a pocketful of cash, a brand new, world-class stadium fit for kings in their possession, and a group of core players that are so often capable of taking ones breath away with brilliance, Spurs were on the right path.

But the start to their 2019-20 season hasn’t been pretty, and it seems as if their trip to the final in Madrid last June may have masked some serious issues that we didn’t notice before. With the number of pressing issues popping up, one has to wonder whether their run to the Champions League final was a fluke, and if it even changed the club’s course at all.

They did pull off a spectacular move in the transfer market to pick up Tanguy Ndombele, and once he gets going there will hardly be a team in the world to stop him, but something is still missing for this team, and while Mauricio Pochettino has very much achieved cult hero-type status at the club, one has to question whether he is capable of truly taking this team to the next level, and whether he might even be taking the team backwards.

Now, let’s get one thing straight: Mauricio Pochettino is an excellent manager. In no way am I questioning that.

For him to take Spurs from what they were in 2014, and turn them into a Champions League runner-up (which nobody could have predicted back in 2014, by the way), proves his managerial prowess. His development of players proves it too, such as Harry Kane turning into a world-beater under his guidance, or Dele Alli going from a League One midfielder to the PFA Young Player of the Year twice in a row.

But something is still missing, and you can prove it by quite simply taking a look at Spurs’ Premier League positions under the Argentine: 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

It rapidly increased the first few seasons, as Spurs were looking like potential Premier League title-contenders (the season they finished 2nd they finished 7 points behind title-winners Chelsea and there wasn’t really any title race), but ever since their runners-up finish in 2016-17, things have been dwindling down once again. Now, there isn’t any proof that they will even finish in the top 4 this season, especially with how things are going away from home.

They also haven’t won a single piece of silverware during Pochettino’s tenure – every season it looks like they might be on the cusp of it, and every season they end up emptyhanded. With the amount of money they are now spending, and with the likes of Kane and Eriksen clearly growing impatient with the lack of trophies, the success has to start right now for Spurs. They have to start challenging, and even if it seemed like they might start challenging for trophies because of their appearance in the final, they simply aren’t any closer to it, and that’s the damning truth.

January 20th vs Fulham, that was the last time Spurs won an away game in the Premier League. Since then, they’ve played 9 away fixtures and lost 7 of them, drawing the other 2. If that stat isn’t baffling enough, they’ve picked up just 22 points in their last 19 Premier League matches, which could very-well be considered bottom 5 form. Let’s say Spurs didn’t get past Manchester City in the quarter-finals, or Lucas Moura didn’t score the late goal against Ajax in the semis, and Spurs hadn’t made it to the Champions League final – would they be in a crisis right now? The answer would most likely be yes, which means that Pochettino would also be on the hot seat right now.

Despite that scenario, they did get to the final and it has made a difference at the club, which has many people thinking that Mauricio Pochettino is untouchable, which of course isn’t true. He may have been the catalyst for change that the club needed during this period, but sometimes one manager can only take you so far, sometimes they’re only there to bridge the gap or play a part in only a portion of the big picture, and it’s looking increasingly likely that Pochettino is one of those managers for Spurs.

So, no, I’m not expecting Pochettino to get the sack anytime soon, but I am also not expecting Spurs to start challenging for serious silverware either, and the club now has to take a serious look in the mirror and decide whether the chaos they’re seeing unravel in front of them is really worth staying loyal to Pochettino for.