Tottenham Hotspur returned to winning ways after a nervy afternoon against Southampton in North London.
With the media spotlight firmly focused on North London following the defeat to Colchester United in midweek, the last thing Mauricio Pochettino needed was the dismissal of Serge Aurier after just 31 minutes of action.
Despite being reduced to ten men, the Spurs players dug deep to grind out a 2-1 win.
Former Arsenal defender Martin Keown has claimed that Mauricio Pochettino ‘trying to force’ some of his players into signing new contracts with the club.
Three players who have been pivotal in the club’s progression over the past few seasons find themselves out of contract in the summer.
Christian Eriksen, Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld are all able to agree a pre-contract with European clubs from January and walk away as free agents at the end of the current campaign.
Keown also stated that Mauricio Pochettino should also refrain from expressing an interest in the Real Madrid job at somepoint in the future.
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He told Football Focus on BBC One (28/09/2019 at 12:10 pm): “When you don’t win trophies, this is the fallout,”
“You have got players as well and you talk about agendas. You have three players whose contracts run out at the end of the season. And obviously they want to go somewhere else.
“It seems like the manager is almost trying to force them into signing contracts. I think essentially these are good lads he has there, good people, but they maybe want to go elsewhere. I think Pochettino himself has been linked with Real Madrid. He has to pull all this together now and this could implode. They haven’t won an away game since January.
“It really hurts when you don’t feel that glory – they are the bridesmaids, aren’t they? The Champions League would have hurt them to the core. Eriksen, you can’t turn his head with money now. He now wants to go to Real Madrid. But the manager is saying that he wouldn’t mind going to Real Madrid either, he needs to put a lid on what his public messages are – they have gone a bit like Arsenal, dare I say it. Their home form is very good. It’s away from home [where their problems lie].”
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