Poch gives head to managerial misunderstanding

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via Club Metro

Mauricio Pochettino is not a manager he's a coach, a head coach to be exact. He's gone out of his way to clarify the subtle difference between what he does at Spurs and what a manager's role entails in comparison. It's fair to say he's gone some distance in getting his point across after making a point of correct a journalist that quoted Harry Kane's reference to 'players and the manager'. Was it really worth the diversion?

My initial reaction was Pochettino was wishing to delivery his stand-point on this with stubborn control to let the reporters appreciate that his responsibilities differ in terms of control when compared to his tenure at Southampton. He wanted to make this distinction. Be it thanks to OCD or to make sure everyone knew his hands have been tied, knowingly tied.

Now, arguably, most managers/coaches in his position would not have picked up on the citation (referring to him as a manager) as we tend to accept the person dealing with the football team gets on with doing so - no matter his official job title. Poch wanted to make sure there was no ambiguity. Was this purely stubbornness or a direct dig at those that always get the blame from the supporters (the chairman, Daniel Levy and the director of lack of transparency, Franco Baldini).

Poch took the job. He knows what Spurs are about. He probably spoke to football people for advice before accepting it. The pay-off for getting sacked is hardly one to be scoffed at. He was also probably informed how the internal structure is meant to support the 'head coach' when it comes to matters of a transfer nature. So was he letting us know what we all know already? Or was he participating in a little self-preservation and channelling frustration that he isn't sitting comfortably within the ENIC bubble?

He explained he looks after the team rather than owning wide-ranging responsibilities. Maybe Poch feels suffocated or let down by the departments around him that are not allowing him to influence critical areas of the club - say incoming players, the academy. Still, Paul Mitchell (via Southampton) is on his way to inject some progressive thinking into our scouting with a player analysis blueprint so all of this might be worth ignoring. We are probably placing too much emphasis on our own perception of the clubs hierarchy and taking Pochettino's dry serious delivery as a fatalistic view point rather than a clear statement of fact that he understands and agrees to work under.

Still, if I was Pochettino I wouldn't worry too much. Harry Redknapp was our 'manager' and Daniel Levy still signed players he didn't ask for (famously with the capture of Steven Pienaar from Everton).

There is very little logic with Spurs, just a whole heap of conjecture. What that structure is, within constraints of understandable definition, remains the more prominent unresolved conundrum.