It’s not often you hear a footballer who has played under Mauricio Pochettino talking negatively about him, but one former Tottenham player has blamed the boss as to why he didn’t reach the level expected of him.
The player in question is Paulinho, who is now plying his trade at Barcelona of all places. The Brazilian moved to White Hart Lane from Corinthians and after much hype surrounding his signing, never made an impact at the club.
When Mauricio Pochettino took over as manager in 2014, he quickly identified that Paulinho was not in his plans, despite the Brazilian being a regular under Andre Villas-Boas and Tim Sherwood.
Paulinho has cited his failure at Tottenham on the fact that Poch did not play him in his strongest position and was shipped off to Chinese Super League side Guangzhou Evergrande.
Since then, at 29, Paulinho has had somewhat of a revival at Barcelona and has even scored more league goals this season than Ronaldo.
He told MailOnline: “My first game with Pochettino I played in my position. But after that I played in every single position but mine.
“If you are not playing in your position in a league as competitive as England then it is difficult.
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“In a year with him I played in my position two or three times and I played well. But that’s not to say that I had a problem with Pochettino. It was his decision.”
Paulinho added: “When I went from Tottenham to China a lot of people said that was it, my career was over.
“I had a couple of other offers at the time but they were both loans and I would have had to go back at the end. I just wanted to play.”
Maybe Paulinho has forgotten about this ‘effort’ at Burnley?
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