Senior journalist claims Pochettino has issued challenge to Daniel Levy

ESPN’s Mark Ogden has claimed that Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino has issued a challenge to Daniel Levy to spend more money in the transfer market.

Tottenham became the first club since the inception of the transfer window to not add to their squad last summer.

Despite this, Pochettino’s men have fared really well in the first half of the season and find themselves competing on all four fronts. Pochettino has been linked with Manchester United job at the end of the season but the Argentine has however recently suggested that he wants to remain with Spurs for the long haul.

Pochettino has also said recently that if Spurs are to be expected to win titles, then the club needs to operate differently in the transfer market (Marca).

The 46-year-old said due to the costs of moving into the new stadium, Spurs aren’t able to compete in the transfer market with their rivals in England and Europe.

According to the Daily Star, Ogden suggests that this was Pochettino’s way of pubically twisting Daniel Levy’s arm to get the Tottenham chairman to invest a little more on the first team, both in terms of signing new players and retaining the services of the likes of Eriksen and Alderweireld whose contracts are running out.

“[Pochettino’s] basically challenging Daniel Levy to give him some money to spend,” Ogden told ESPN FC.

“And he probably knows that the answer to that is gonna be no. Not because Daniel Levy doesn’t want to give him any money to strengthen the squad, but because he can’t because they’ve got this new stadium which they’re moving into, the costs of that have just spiralled out of control.

“It’s way more expensive than they thought it would be, so can they afford to go out and spend £200m on players this summer? No. Because they have to find a way to finance the stadium.”

He further suggested that this could eventually cause Pochettino to abandon the project at Spurs.

Ogden added “Christian Eriksen hasn’t signed his contract yet. Is he waiting for clarification as to what’s gonna happen? Because if one player goes, then the rest will be knocking on Pochettino’s door saying: ‘why are you selling your best players?”

“At some point, Spurs have to find a way to make the stadium pay, keep the players happy and add to the squad, and I don’t know how they’ll do it.”

“Pochettino? I’d be surprised if he didn’t [go to Manchester United].”

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