Adrian Durham confessed he was astonished to discover Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino was a contender to win Premier League Manager of the Season.
The Premier League’s official Twitter account revealed the four managers who were nominees for the award on Tuesday and shared that Pochettino, Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola, Wolves’ Nuno Espirito Santo, Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp were the four bosses battling for the accolade.
Four outstanding campaigns ?
Who gets your vote for @BarclaysFooty Manager of the Season?
?? https://t.co/Wvw9lR9Rme #PLAwards pic.twitter.com/694RSdUb1T
— Premier League (@premierleague) May 7, 2019
Durham was reading out the nominees live on air and stopped when he got to Pochettino’s name as he couldn’t believe the Spurs boss had any chance of winning the award after losing 13 league games this season.
“Mauricio Pochettino…What? Hang on, they’ve lost 13 games,” said Durham on talkSPORT (17:09, Tuesday May 7th).
“How on earth is Pochettino in there, it’s utterly ridiculous, they’re below Chelsea in Sarri’s first season, Premier League manager of the season Darren (Darren Gough was saying about their Champions League success) Nuno Espirito Santo is there and rightly so.
“I’m astonished how Pochettino is in that list, thirteen defeats, that is mad, beyond believe.
“It’s a media love-in at Spurs.”
OPINION
Durham was not happy to hear Pochettino’s name being in the mix, and it’s hard to understand why he was so outraged. For the majority of this season, Spurs have been the third best team in the Premier League. Spurs may have slipped to fourth in the table behind Chelsea after a disappointing 1-0 loss to Bournemouth, but that doesn’t mean Pochettino hasn’t done a good job this season. Tottenham signed no players in either transfer window and Pochettino has worked wonders to achieve so much with his squad considering it’s lack of depth. There are few areas of Spurs’ squad that need strengthening but Pochettino has found a way to keep grinding out results despite these shortcomings. There’s also the fact that Spurs have been dealt a rough hand with injuries, see how many games Harry Kane and Harry Winks have missed, yet still soldiered on. When you consider that, why shouldn’t Pochettino potentially be named Premier League Manager of the Season?