Perform or else is Pochettino's message
Andros Townsend has been dropped from the Tottenham first-team squad and banned from first-team training after his behaviour towards fitness coach Nathan Gardiner after the game on Monday night.
"As a manager I am very fair but the discipline is very important. The staff need to show respect to the player and the player needs to show respect to the staff. He needs to learn about football, about behaviour, about discipline, about a lot of things.
"Football is not only about taking the ball in your feet and playing. You have a responsibility as a professional."
Regular readers will know I have discussed Townsend's mentality on several occasions. His cameo suggested he may he turned the corner mentally, but as discussed last season about Lamela, it is a fragile thing. You can try to buy into something, try to attune your mind with the coaches requirements and genuinely give it everything you have got, but one small thing can simply send your mind back to square one where the world is against you and you lash out or don't perform. When you are not playing regularly it tests you mentally, it tests your confidence, you have to be mentally strong and deal with it.
Townsend for me has a long way to go mentally before he will ever fulfil the potential he has. He has the skill, but as I keep saying there is more to football than just having talent, how your head decides to use it determines what quality of player you are.
He has apologised for the incident, but his future at Tottenham must be in doubt. If he is thinking along those lines as well then he is not totally focused on Spurs and won't be able to perform to his optimum.
That is a clear message to all players and to all fans, if you get a chance take it, that's how successful clubs operate, none of this give me a run of games to show what I can do rubbish, that is charity football. Winners are ruthless, perform or else should be the underlying mentality and is under Pochettino.
The culture at Tottenham has been wrong for too long. When the chips are down we have blown it at the end of a season time and time again. Anyone can play when it is easy, who has the mental strength to play when it is tough? The culture has been one of let's try, we hope we achieve XYZ. Winners don't hope, for winners it is an expectation, for winners it is not only a goal, but one that will be achieved and they have total belief that it will be.
Total belief will beat hope 99 times out of 100 because it adds that extra edge that makes the difference. When people talk about an extra 10% or going the extra mile that is it, it makes you give just that little bit more you didn't know you have. It is part of the winning mentality makeup I regularly talk about.
Mousa Dembele and Erik Lamela are two players that have had to come to terms with it and succeeded it would seem, Etienne Capoue, Younes Kaboul, Emmanuel Adebayor are examples of players who couldn't come to terms with it. For them it seems football is just going out on to the park and giving it your best, sorry but it isn't.
Andros Townsend hasn't got it mentally yet, will he develop it or will he want to stay in his comfort zone doing what he wants to do, which is playing for himself, basically all he wants to do is cut in and shoot for personal glory. He'll have a decent career doing that, but he'll never be a winner with that attitude.
he has a month to turn it around. The incident on Monday was a result of frustration so the desire is there, it just needs to be channelled in the right way. Once again this is where a sports psychologist would be coming into his own. Liverpool finished second when they used one and nowhere when they stopped, from which they are yet to recover. If it adds something to the club then they should be playing a greater role, enhancing not taking away from the work Pochettino is doing.
"All players have a future. It's up to them to have a future here. Football can change quickly. He is in the squad because we believe in him and believe he can give us very good things, but it is up to the player when he has the chance to impress me and show I am wrong in my decision.
"Has he been fined? It's a private matter. I think it's obvious. Your question and my answer."
That is a clear message to all players and to all fans, if you get a chance take it, that's how successful clubs operate, none of this give me a run of games to show what I can do rubbish, that is charity football. Winners are ruthless, perform or else should be the underlying mentality and is under Pochettino.
The culture at Tottenham has been wrong for too long. When the chips are down we have blown it at the end of a season time and time again. Anyone can play when it is easy, who has the mental strength to play when it is tough? The culture has been one of let's try, we hope we achieve XYZ. Winners don't hope, for winners it is an expectation, for winners it is not only a goal, but one that will be achieved and they have total belief that it will be.
Total belief will beat hope 99 times out of 100 because it adds that extra edge that makes the difference. When people talk about an extra 10% or going the extra mile that is it, it makes you give just that little bit more you didn't know you have. It is part of the winning mentality makeup I regularly talk about.
Mousa Dembele and Erik Lamela are two players that have had to come to terms with it and succeeded it would seem, Etienne Capoue, Younes Kaboul, Emmanuel Adebayor are examples of players who couldn't come to terms with it. For them it seems football is just going out on to the park and giving it your best, sorry but it isn't.
Andros Townsend hasn't got it mentally yet, will he develop it or will he want to stay in his comfort zone doing what he wants to do, which is playing for himself, basically all he wants to do is cut in and shoot for personal glory. He'll have a decent career doing that, but he'll never be a winner with that attitude.
he has a month to turn it around. The incident on Monday was a result of frustration so the desire is there, it just needs to be channelled in the right way. Once again this is where a sports psychologist would be coming into his own. Liverpool finished second when they used one and nowhere when they stopped, from which they are yet to recover. If it adds something to the club then they should be playing a greater role, enhancing not taking away from the work Pochettino is doing.
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