Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino resorted to the infamous lines from the 1992 Hollywood thriller, ‘A Few Good Men’ when asked about pundits giving opinions about what goes on inside clubs.
The Spurs boss was asked about Gary Neville’s and Roy Keane’s harsh criticism of Dele Alli’s recent performances (Sky Sports) and also whether he himself would ever go into the punditry.
In response, Pochettino took a shot at the pundits and insisted that he would never do the job since he wouldn’t talk about the situation of a club without knowing all the facts.
Speaking to the Evening Standard, the 47-year-old said, “I respect all opinions but I respect too much the job of managers and players. When you are not in the place [where] you have all the information and you give your opinion, people at the club are laughing about your opinion.
“It is easy to talk from outside. We were talking today about [the film] ‘A Few Good Men’ – ‘You want the truth, you can’t handle the truth!’ And if you talk in public, in the end it is very dangerous. One day I may change my mind, but today no because the responsibility is massive.”
“I never judge your opinions. I never criticise your opinions. I am a person who accepts that is your business if you work in a newspaper. You need to give your opinion and sometimes I agree, sometimes I don’t. I need to respect your opinion. That has always been in my mind since I first became a coach.”
The Argentine was quite confident that Alli will return to his best once he has a run of games under his belt.
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“We know very well that Dele is going to be back,” he added. “His mentality is good. After a tough period, always you need time to recover the feelings and performance.
“As long as you are consistent and working hard, you are going to arrive again because the quality is there.”
When asked if the Spurs midfielder has lost a bit of an edge to his game after letting go of the naughty side that he displayed regularly in his first two seasons at the club, Pochettino responded, “It’s still there inside of him. We spoke with him about improving different areas. But for sure the devil is going to appear again.
“I don’t know when. But for sure it will. If you go back, we all criticised him. But remember I said I said I liked this Dele Alli. Because sometimes players being a bit naughty makes that difference.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I think Pochettino is absolutely spot on about the state of modern football punditry with many former players simply speculating about things they cannot know and worse haven’t even researched on. Many of them simply repeat the talking points that are floating around but I actually like Gary Neville as I feel he is an exception to this rule. I genuinely believe his criticism was aimed to motivate Alli to play to the level we know he can.
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