It’s Good To Feel The Pain In The Defeat – Mauricio Pochettino

Mauricio Pochettino has said it could benefit Tottenham Hotspur to “feel the pain” of three successive defeats and insisted he will stick with his rotation plan against Brighton & Hove Albion.

Pochettino has lost three consecutive games for the first time at Tottenham and admitted his confidence has been affected, but he believes his players will also learn from the experience.

“The group is OK,” he said at a news conference. “The group is, of course, a little bit anxious about winning games because it’s normal when you don’t win. The faces are different, and the atmosphere and the energy is different. That’s what happens.

“Sometimes it’s good to feel the pain, the defeat, not only the one, two but three. It’s so important to be clever and be strong.”

After Premier League defeats against Watford and Liverpool, Tottenham fell away to Inter Milan 2-1 in their Champions League group-stage opener on Tuesday when Matias Vecino scored in the 92nd minute.

“Football is like life,” Pochettino said. “It’s impossible to keep 70 years of happiness. Always, there are periods of up and downs, and football is the same, up and downs. It’s so important to learn from that period and keep calm.

“I am so relaxed, I am so calm, because I know football. In the same time, when you win, you get a lot of praise that sometimes you don’t deserve. When you lose, you must keep the balance and accept the criticism and that people are going to think differently, and, of course, try to find the reason why we lose.”

Pochettino has used a variety of different formations so far this season and has made frequent changes to his lineups, most recently leaving Toby Alderweireld and Kieran Trippier in London for the game against Inter.