BeIN SPORTS pundit Andy Gray has claimed that Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino needs to win trophies to be considered a ‘super coach’.
Spurs were dumped out of both the League Cup and FA Cup in the same week last month, and Gray believes the club needs to get over the hump for Pochettino as much as for themselves.
“He has to win trophies if he’s going to be a super coach, that would be the fair thing,” he said on beIN SPORTS. “Say he’s there another 10 years and he’s got nine top four finishes, he hasn’t won the league and he hasn’t won a European trophy or a FA Cup or League Cup – would he walk away and be considered a great coach, a super coach, I don’t think he would.
“Now that that’s established [being a top four team], if you can’t win the league and you just miss out, you have to win something else. You have to give the fans something to get excited about.”
Pochettino won't ever be classed as a "super coach" unless he wins a trophy!#beiNPL #TOTNEW pic.twitter.com/mdPJiFj8YZ
— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) February 2, 2019
OPINION
Tottenham fans won’t want to hear it, probably because it’s coming from one of the more insufferable people in the sport, but Gray does have a point here. There probably aren’t too many super coaches left in football. There’s Pep Guardiola certainly, maybe Jose Mourinho, Massimiliano Allegri, Jurgen Klopp, Ernesto Valverde and Zinedine Zidane, but it’s a matter of perspective as to whether Pochettino belongs in that group. In terms of managerial ability and getting the most out of his players then he has to be up there, but he doesn’t have the credentials in terms of trophy wins. Every one of the above men has either won a league title or a Champions League trophy, and Pochettino simply hasn’t got near that yet. He is an outstanding manager, but the one thing missing from his résumé is a trophy. Hopefully that will change at Tottenham in the coming years.