At last someone giving specialist help to the defence

Jan Vertonghen has spoken how Mauricio Pochettino is giving him a lot of help and using plenty of video to improve aspects of his play.

At last someone giving specialist help to the defence


Then Nabil Bentaleb told us three areas of his game Pochettino has asked him to work on. Now it's the turn of Younes Kaboul to reveal how he is being helped by the 42-year-old Argentinian.

Pochettino represented Argentina 20 times, mainly as a centre-back but also as a right-back. He played in all three of his countries games at the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan, we'll gloss over the fact it was his foul which led to David Beckham scoring the only goal of the game from the penalty spot. He is well versed therefore in the art of defending, especially as his playing career covered three countries, Argentina, Spain and France.

It was in France that Younes Kaboul encountered him first hand when he was in the youth system at Auxerre. In 2001 Kaboul would regularly work as a ball boy at Stade de l’Abbe-Deschamps during games and on one such occasion Auxerre played PSG.

“He scored in the goal that I was just behind and I remember it. It was a volley from his right foot and it was the first game of Ronaldinho being at PSG. 
“I remember it like it was yesterday and now he is my manager. 
“Of course I spoke to him about it and he remembered this goal. That was only 2001, it was not long ago when you think about and now he is my manager. 
“Mauricio was a top defender first of all. A very classy defender. 
“We learn a lot from him because he has got experience at this level and we try to put in the game everything he has taught us. 
“He is helping me to read the game. To read the game properly and to anticipate stuff. I think we have applied this already during the games.”

I maintained last season that a player like Danny Rose had nobody to learn from at the club, no coach that had played in his position with Benoit Assou-Ekotto being frozen out. He was having to learn on the job himself or from people who have never played there.

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This season the first thing Pochettino wanted to do was sort out the defence. He has brought in new players, improved Danny Rose leaps and bounds, improved Kyle Naughton into a dependable looking right-back and helped Younes Kaboul produce an outstanding display at Arsenal, the like of which Spurs fans haven't seen from him in three seasons.

As a defender reading the game is one of the biggest assets there is, if you can read a game better you can be in the right place more often, it may look like luck but it isn't, it's a skill and it will make Kaboul a better player.