Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino has surprisingly described defender Juan Foyth as one of the best players against Arsenal on Sunday.
The Argentinian made a critical error in the second half which led to the Gunners’ decisive third goal in their 4-2 victory, however Pochettino was pleased with his overall performance.
“Because he’s young, it’s easy to blame him,” he told Football London. “But for me Juan was one of the best players on the pitch.
“If we put this pass that wasn’t good in that action out of the 90 minutes, he was by far the best, by far,” he finished.
OPINION
This seems like a classic case of a manager defending a young player who’s just made a big mistake in a huge fixture. Pochettino gambled by pairing the inexperienced Foyth with a player in Jan Vertonghen who is only recently returning from injury. Toby Alderweireld was sent to the bench, and you have to say that that decision was probably a mistake. Foyth didn’t have a bad game overall, but you can’t just erase his massive error from your assessment of his performance. He did make the mistake and he’s going to have to learn from it now. It’s interesting to see the way that Pochettino handled this situation compared to how Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho deals with this sort of thing. The Red Devils chief would likely have buried Foyth in his post match comments, but Pochettino defended the youngster and that will surely make all the difference moving forward.