Educating success is now the Tottenham way

Educating success is now the Tottenham way

Tottenham needed to change, the whole culture at the club needed to change, not just the playing staff. After the aborted attempt under Andre Villas-Boas, we appointed Mauricio Pochettino to put it into action.

Discipline, fitness and mentality became the cornerstones of the Tottenham vision. It takes time to get messages across, to get a team playing the way you want then to play and a squad you want. Pochettino hasn't messed about, the players who didn't buy in and didn't toe the line were simply left to rot, they were of no use to the club.

Like a unambitious footballer stuck in his comfort zone just doing what he does week in week out so these players were dragging Tottenham down, they were keeping Spurs in a comfort zone, neither improving nor getting worse. If you consistently do something and it keeps failing then you can not expect a different outcome if you keep doing the same things, you'll just keep getting the same results.

Mauricio Pochettino is a change, he is transforming the club with successful ex-players telling us he is working along the right lines to bring success to the club and change our soft image. Buy into what he is doing and you become part of the group, don't buy in and you are on the outside. 

Andros Townsend is a player on the outside, now looking for another club after finally accepting he doesn't have a Tottenham future. He has talent, but talent isn't enough, you have to have the right mindset to go with it. 

Brad Friedel spoke to talkSPORT and used that word again, mentality. He told them the training was tough and that that everyone had to stay at the top of their game mentally.
“It’s not an easy system to play in, I can tell you from personal experience that it’s not easy training every day.
“It’s very enjoyable but it’s physically demanding and you have to stay on top of everything, your physical fitness and mentality, but he’s done a very good job and long may it continue.”
It is clear to see the effect driving mentality into them is having, winners hate to lose and Tottenham are on an 11 game unbeaten run in the Premier League. Player after player is now talking about mentality and Spurs. Hugo Lloris spoke of it again and again on the official site, Federico Fazio did too.

This season Harry Kane has had a mental challenge, he overcame what Roberto Soldado couldn't. Above anything else it is the key ingredient of success. You can be a nice guy, but have a steely determined inner winning mentality, you can't be a nice guy and win without it, you will forever be an unlucky loser always falling short.

You have to either educate the players you have into a winning mentality because it is dormant within them all, they have unconsciously used it to get as far as they have. Talk to people in any sport and they will tell you the hardest moment is getting over the winning line, not getting yourself in the position to get over the winning line. The same applies to mentality. 

Getting into the team or developing as a young player is merely getting yourself into position if you then want to go on and win things you have to dig into your mentality. Players who do will stay if they see the same in others around them, players who see they are doing it in isolation will leave to seek the same somewhere else and that is to be found at the successful clubs unsurprisingly.

To buy those players is expensive, not necessarily in transfer fees, but in wages. The other options are to educate what you have or find young hungry open minded players you can educate. as it is within our financial bracket we have chosen the latter option and we are seeing signs of the message coming across in our play and results.

It isn't a five-minute process so fans will still have to be patient, but id we keep along this road then we will build a club mentality that is a winning mentality, then we have the chance to regularly win things. We are building the vessel, next will be slowly upgrading the contents, those who come in one end will be expected to come out the other quicker than in the past, they will be expected to develop quicker, which with the right mentality is the natural way of things.

It is a fascinating journey to see and watch some players grasp the concept they have resisted before. Players like Dembele and Lamela have knuckled down and bought in, others complain. Complaining is a way of blaming someone else, not taking responsibility for your own action and your own predicament. It indicates someone who wants an easy life and who thinks they should be given things rather than do what it takes to get them.

We now have the international break which will become boring after a week, an England football fix is not the same as a Tottenham football fix. The World Cup was the expected disaster, we had no Spurs players present, now England can't pick enough of them, that alone tells you something.