‘It is a chapter that needs to be closed’ – Pochettino on his time at Tottenham so far as he looks to the future

When Mauricio Pochettino arrived at Tottenham five years ago, the club was on the fringes of making the step up to Champions League football.

Poch managed to take the team from maybes to Champions League regulars, with Spurs having qualified among Europe’s elite for the past three years.

He has also finished in the top three with Spurs for three years running, as well as defeating the likes of Real Madrid, Inter Milan, and Borussia Dortmund in Europe.

And all of this has been maintained without spending a penny in well over a year now, as well as contending with playing almost two seasons worth of away games as the new stadium was being built.

However, Pochettino believes that it is time to put an end to that chapter of Spurs’ history.

With the stadium now in place, he believes it is time to think in a different way, implying that Spurs should be more aggressive in investment in the squad to win some titles.

Poch said (Football London): “The big challenge was when we arrived here to be today where we are. That was the big challenge that we found because from the beginning to make reality, to be in the stadium, and all that affect that and all the circumstances that we needed to deal with it. No one realised that to be sitting here with a team playing in the Champions League in the last seasons in the Champions League and fighting for the title or being a contender. We started this season with a lot of circumstances again, with the players and the club and sitting here with seven games to play, in the top four, quarter-finals of the Champions League. Of course the feeling is not good in the last few weeks but it cannot hide the effort we have put in trying to get the club to a level it deserves to be in the last five years. We feel so proud, the players feel so proud, the staff feel so proud, the chairman feels so proud. Now is to try and finish the season in the best way.

“For me it is a chapter that needs to be closed. Next season we need to build, or be ready for a new project, a new chapter – two years, three years, four years, depends on Daniel, who is going to decide. I am happy and proud to finish a chapter this season, competing the way we compete, helping the club, the fans, the players to be better. It is another thing to talk and sit here again talking about where the club needs to be in the next level, in the future.

“I don’t know. That is a decision always for the chairman. Only I am talking about I am so honest and important for the club to close this chapter and start a new project. A new project means to maybe to talk in a different way, to operate in a different way. It was so useful the way that everyone helped the club achieve what we wanted to achieve, being very competitive and aggressive in the way we play. We understand very well what he club needs from us but when you settle here in this fantastic stadium, to be here to fight and not only in some period in your history to be in the Champions League like in the past. It’s a stadium to be in every season of the Champions League, every season being a real contender and fighting for big things. It is my idea and we we will see if we can deliver it. That is what the club deserves.”

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