We Will Try To Dominate Manchester City – Mauricio Pochettino

Mauricio Pochettino has resigned his fate to believing that his top players are entitled to want to leave the club if they continue to fall short of silverware.

It was suggested to Pochettino that some of his players may not want to wait another four years to win trophies.

“Exactly, that is the problem. I agree with you,” he replied. “Maybe some players are not agreed in this plan and this strategy, and of course they are right to complain, to talk and in the end to want to move or have another challenge for different reasons, because we are all different and we all have different challenges, motivations, roles in our life.

“That is normal. The most important thing is to talk, to design the plan for everyone and then be happy because life is about enjoying and being happy. It’s not about wasting time in a bad way, because life is so short.

“It’s human nature that the players always want to improve, and have different challenges and ideas. But I am not worried, because in the end it’s always three parts in all the situations in football — the players, the club that owns the players, and if another club want some players, and in the end it’s to be agreed on different things and try to make everyone happy with the decision. We’re not worried.”

Pochettino, though, said Spurs would try to “dominate” City and added that his players’ mentality is more important than his team selection or tactics.

“We’re going to play in a way that we believe we can win,” Pochettino said. “Every manager thinks when they design their strategy to play, it’s always the right strategy. It doesn’t matter if you put one or another player with different characteristics in the XI, or play with a different shape.

“The most important is the mentality and the ideas you have and try to translate to the players. It’s not that we need to be brave — we need to behave like always, we need to think like always. We can win, we can play, we can enjoy and develop what we want.

“Then, of course, it’s about power. It’s the opponent that tries to do what they want to do. Then it’s about playing and trying to dominate and trying to play in the way that sometimes you can. First of all, our idea is always to try to dominate, play in the way that we want and try to play in the opposite half. And then it’s football and anything can happen.”