Pochettino: Spurs will be Premier League giants
Tottenham Hotspur may still be in the shadows of north London rivals Arsenal, but manager Mauricio Pochettino insists they are well on the way to being a powerhouse of British football.
Spurs finished third in the Premier League last season and qualified for the Champions League, although their surprise title challenge eventually fizzled out and they finished behind Arsenal for a 21st consecutive year.
A new stadium, which will rival Arsenal’s Emirates, is being built and Pochettino boasts a young squad including a number of England internationals such as Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Kyle Walker.
Tottenham are rarely included in the same bracket as Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal, but Pochettino is adamant that will change.
“Long term, yes. Maybe we are a little bit behind them now in the project but I think that our expectation is, in the long term, to compete with all the big clubs,” he said.
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“We are building, after two years, a different philosophy, a different project – to build a new stadium and the unbelievable training ground that we have is to set a principle to be a big, big club.
“Our ambition is to be one of the biggest clubs in the world but for that you need time and a process.
“I think that balance is the most important thing in football. We have an unbelievable academy, people who work very hard to try to provide the first team with very good players and then we need to bring in players who can settle quickly into our philosophy.
“That is very important. It’s a process where we are working very hard now to set the principles to arrive in the new stadium and try to show how big our club is.”
