Mauricio Pochettino’s 100th game in charge of Tottenham Hotspur takes place this evening as the Premier League title-challengers face the daunting task of playing Borussia Dortmund in Germany and ahead of the tie, the Argentine manager has praised the mental toughness of his side.
Spurs had the opportunity to go top of the league table for a few hours at the weekend when they were 2-1 up against an Arsenal side who were down to ten men. However, they couldn’t hold onto their lead and there had been a few concerns that the inability to hold onto their lead may affect the players ahead of the trip to Dortmund.
Pochettino was quick to dispell this theory and said that the mental strength of his team is much better than it was when he arrived.
He told the Evening Standard:
We are stronger than before. I am happy with the way we have developed our mentality in 21 months [since I arrived]. We are showing a good mentality. It is a good thing to be disappointed. A few years ago, Arsenal were on a different level and a draw in a big derby was a good result. But we have changed our mentality. We have shown we can compete at this level against Arsenal, a team who have always been in the Champions League in recent years and who invest more money than us.
Pochettino also indicated that he might rotate his team for the game.
It is difficult to play every game with the same team and the important thing is to have a bigger squad. The Europa League and the Premier League are our only priorities. This is a period when it is tough for the players and you need to rotate. We need to refresh the team.
