Mauricio Pochettino must cure Tottenham’s travel sickness against top-six clubs

NOT long before last April’s North London Derby, two opposing players — who are  long-time friends — discussed their rival clubs over dinner.

The Arsenal player insisted to his Tottenham pal that his team still had, man for man, better players than their foes.

But he  admitted being  envious of the vastly-superior team spirit at Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs. The Arsenal man said when he looked around at his hugely-talented team-mates, he wondered which of them might turn up for any given match.

When the sides met for the last time at the old White Hart Lane, there was nothing in  Tottenham’s 2-0 victory to suggest the Arsenal man was being unrealistic about his colleagues.

And when Spurs finished the season above their sworn enemies for the first time in 22 years, few Arsenal people other than the delusional Arsene Wenger would have argued they hadn’t seen it coming a mile off. The question, before Sat­urday’s resumption of hostilities at the Emirates, is whether we are  seeing  a blip or a long-term power shift in North London.

And after Spurs got over their Wembley woes by stuffing Borussia Dortmund, Liverpooland Real Madrid, you’d assume they will be in the ascendancy for at least as long as Pochettino and Wenger remain. Because where individual players improve markedly under Pochettino, they now go backwards under Wenger.

Just contrast the development of the young England inter­nationals at the two clubs. Look at Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Eric Dier, Danny Rose, Harry Winks and Kyle Walker,  compared to Jack Wilshere,  Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade- Chamberlain, Kieran Gibbs, Carl Jenkinson and Calum Chambers (remember him?).

And while Pochettino presides over a ‘no excuses’ environment, Wenger employs an ‘any excuses’ policy. More than a week after Arsenal’s defeat at Manchester City, the Frenchman was still howling at the moon, ranting at ref Michael Oliver. While earning extra Qatari oil cash from a deal with beIN Sports, the £8million-per-year Gunners boss was still venting about Raheem Sterling having the temerity to adhere to the laws of gravity and win a penalty after being shoved in the back. The Arsenal boss also claimed City were only ahead by 0.7 to 0.6 on the new-fangled ‘expected goals’ formula. This system is used by people on the internet who are convinced football’s actual scoring system isn’t complex enough.

Yet even this was completely made up (Wenger has a tendency for stating stats in a convincing manner, only for them to be disproved by a basic Google search once he’s left the room).

Because Opta actually had City ahead by 1.83 expected goals  to 0.31 — suggesting a two-goal winning margin was about right.

Just as it had appeared to us dinosaurs  watching with our eyes.

From The Sun