Mauricio Pochettino has been named manager of the month following a stunning April of football for Spurs.
Pochettino was given the award ahead of 4 other nominees, including the likes of Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho, after guiding Tottenham to wins in all 6 of their Premier League matches.
In a month that saw Spurs re-establish a title race, playing catch-up to Chelsea who’d previously been topping the table by 10 points, Tottenham managed to close April just 4 points off the leaders. Pochettino also kept Spurs’ impressive unbeaten home record in the league intact.
Tottenham began the month with two tricky away games to Burnley and Swansea, but won both by a two goal margin. Though Spurs looked destined for defeat at the Liberty stadium being 1-0 for most of the match, Spurs earned the 3 points through a dramatic late flurry of goals all scored after the 88th minute, winning the match 3-1.
Next were two home games against mid-table outfits Watford and Bournemouth, who were both successively dismantled 4-0. A moment to remember against Watford was Harry Kane’s highly anticipated return to football after recovering surprisingly quickly from what had first appeared to be a very damaging ankle injury picked up in the FA Cup fixture against Millwall. News of his return delighted the Spurs faithful and Kane even went on the score in the game against Bournemouth the following week.
Spurs closed out the month with a hard-fought away win at Selhurst Park against an in-form Crystal Palace, who’d recently beaten Arsenal, Liverpool and league-leaders Chelsea. The month was capped however, by a the last ever North London derby at White Hart Lane. Spurs won the game 2-0 thanks to 2 quick-fire goals early into the second half, which mathematically confirmed that Tottenham would finish above Arsenal by the end of the 2016/17 season, a feat that hasn’t been achieved since 1995.
Scoring 15 goals and conceding just 1 in all 6 Premier League wins in April aided greatly in Spurs’ under-dog push for the Premier League title. Though now it seems Tottenham are to finish as runners-up, the tremendous progress made by the team from last season cannot be ignored.
Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
