It Is Difficult For Clubs To Keep Their Best Players – Mauricio Pochettino

Mauricio Pochettino has said Tottenham might not be able to force Harry Kane to stay if he sought a move to Real Madrid, pointing to Philippe Coutinho’s move to Barcelona as an example of the lure of Spain’s top clubs.

“I think it is a massive example or massive point to show how this business is, how difficult it is for the clubs to keep their best players,” Pochettino said of the Coutinho transfer.

“Liverpool is one of the best clubs in the world and look when Coutinho wants to leave how difficult it is to keep your best player. Liverpool wanted to keep [him] but it was difficult to keep him — and look what happened with Cristiano Ronaldo and Man United and [Zinedine] Zidane at Juventus, [Luis] Figo in Barcelona.

“It is a lot of examples that it is so, so tough to keep your best player if the player says he wants to leave.

“That is why it is so important how you care for your players — it is why you need to anticipate things. It is so important to work with the human side and then to provide the player the club and the team an exciting moment and try and build a project that they feel comfortable with and they are happy to be with you.

“Look, that is a good point to assess and talk. Today when a player decides to leave, look what happens. If another club pays the type of money they pay — like Barcelona with Liverpool — how do you stop it? I hear what clubs say. It is so difficult, our job.”

“Harry is so special, because he loves Tottenham and he has always been at Tottenham, but we need to be clever how we manage him,” Pochettino said. “The player needs to choose to stay here — you cannot force the player to stay here.

“Our chose is to try to work together and try to achieve everything we want at the club and of course Harry is such a special player. I told him only a few special players can spent all their career in one club.

“I think Harry is this type of a player who can stay all his career at Tottenham because he loves Tottenham.

But in football you cannot be sure. It is today, the present; tomorrow, after tomorrow, you need to doubt.

That is why it is so important to work together and try to achieve all that you want.

“And of course this present at Tottenham, this future at Tottenham, this project is so exciting and I hope, we hope, that all together we spent a lot of time here and try to win trophies and achieve what we want.”