Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino defends his use of squad rotation

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/16/tottenham-mauricio-pochettino-squad-rotation

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Mauricio Pochettino has launched a passionate defence of his squad system at Tottenham Hotspur, as he admitted that he could make sweeping changes for Wednesday night’s Capital One Cup quarter-final against Newcastle United at White Hart Lane.

The manager has heavily rotated his personnel in the Europa League and the previous ties in the Capital One Cup – at home to Nottingham Forest and Brighton & Hove Albion – and he did the same thing at his former club, Southampton, in the domestic cup competitions. He was also heavily criticised for making six changes in the 1-0 FA Cup fifth round defeat at Sunderland last February.

The Newcastle game is comfortably Pochettino’s biggest cup tie so far at Tottenham and it would not be difficult to predict the reaction if he rested his biggest names and lost, particularly as the club’s next league fixture is at home to Burnley on Saturday.

However, the Spurs manager took a strong line against questions about any rotation being too great a risk, as he made the point that no selection brought with it the guarantee of victory.

Pochettino considers Newcastle to be one of the most physically powerful teams in the country and he is conscious that they have had one more day of preparation time, having played at Arsenal in the league on Saturday. Tottenham went to Swansea City on Sunday.

Emmanuel Adebayor will not feature, having only returned to training on Monday after being granted compassionate leave by the club but everybody else is fit, although Pochettino said that some of the players were in need of a rest. Michel Vorm, Kyle Naughton, Younès Kaboul, Vlad Chiriches, Danny Rose, Mousa Dembélé, Benjamin Stambouli, Aaron Lennon, Andros Townsend and Nacer Chadli are in contention to start.

“Could I make many changes? Maybe,” Pochettino said. “We have played a lot of games this season, 26 official games, and all players have had the chance to play in the different competitions. Against Newcastle, maybe one player is tired and not fresh, and if another team-mate is in better condition, then why not?

“I am a manager and I need to make a decision. You also cannot pick a team to guarantee that we go to the semi-final. In football, it is easy to talk after the game but the important thing is taking the decision before.

“When you are the coach, you have all the information [on fitness levels] and if you win, you are the best and if you don’t, you are a shit, who made the wrong decision. When you sign a player, you have to have the belief in him and think that it is a possibility that he will play in some of the games.”

Pochettino was irritated by the furore that followed his selection against Sunderland and he continued to be prickly about the subject.He stopped short of pointing out that his starting XI that day had featured Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana and Rickie Lambert but he did offer a reminder that they had, in his opinion, done enough to have won.

“The criticism was a lack of respect for my players,” Pochettino said. “If we have players on the squad, it is because we believe in them. If not, why are the players in the squad? It was because we lost that day away at Sunderland but we deserved to win.

“We created a lot of chances. If you see the starting XI, maybe you will realise the criticism is not for the starting XI but because we didn’t score. Always when you lose, people take something to criticise you.”

Pochettino’s clean bill of health at Tottenham is remarkable and it owes much to the way that he and his assistant, Jesús Pérez, the sports science expert, have tailored individual training programmes for the players.

They pushed them extremely hard in pre-season and the early weeks of the season but they appear to be reaping the rewards. It might be no coincidence that Tottenham have scored more goals in the last ten minutes of matches than any other Premier League team.

“It was difficult at the beginning of the season because we pushed our players a lot in the training sessions,” Pochettino said. “We try to work very hard and now, it’s easy to push them to the limit. To arrive in this moment with the squad fully fit is very important for us.”

There are several examples of how Pochettino’s integrated fitness regime has benefitted players but Ryan Mason stands as arguably the clearest. The 23-year-old’s career has been scarred by injury problems but this season he has been available every week.

“When we arrived, at the beginning of the pre-season, it was difficult for Ryan to run,” Pochettino said. “One training session, another training session rest – it was difficult to keep the level. We designed, with the medical staff and the sports science staff, an individual programme to help him; to improve his quality and his condition. The priority was his physical condition. In the case of every player, we analyse and it’s for that that we spend more than 12 hours here [at the training ground] every day. It’s because there is a lot of work.

“When you talk about the fitness of the players, you have to talk about the structure [at the club]. It’s not only about the manager or the sports science people. It’s about creating links to all the different departments, working together and taking decisions together. Jesús is my right-hand man and he is responsible for [overseeing] the fitness, with the sports science and the medical staff. It’s very important to work on prevention and to work in the same way.”