Borussia Dortmund Clash: Mauricio Pochettino Fumes

MATTHEW DUNN

Tottenham boss, Mauricio Pochettino, has demanded that the Premier League finally acts to help English clubs in Europe just like Germans, French, Italian and Spanish authorities do.

While Spurs’ Champions League opponents Borussia Dortmund were allowed to bring forward their game against Augsburg to Friday, Tottenham must do without Kieran Trippier at the Westfalen Stadium on Tuesday night after he failed to recover from the north London derby just three days earlier.

Moreover, Pochettino is worried that despite their 3-0 lead he has not had time to prepare properly for the clash and puts the blame squarely at the feet of the football authorities and their fixture scheduling.

“We need help from the Premier League,” he said. “I don’t now because I am not involved in the decisions. “Look, Dortmund played on Friday, but for us that was impossible.

“We played, Sunday and then played the first leg on Wednesday, now we have played on Saturday when Dortmund play Friday.

“And look what happened with Rennes in the Europa League. They cancelled their game at the weekend to help or provide Rennes to play against Arsenal.

“In Europe, the various FAs are more sensitive to helping the club to compete in the best way in Europe.”

Despite having more teams reach the knockout stages than any other country in the past five years, English clubs have only won a third of their games in the second part of the Champions League.

Italy, France and Germany, who reschedule games to support their teams, have all reached the 50-50 mark while Spain continue to dominate by winning 77 per cent of their heads to head.

“I don’t know whether to blame the Premier League, or to blame Tottenham because we changed the day because we still have not delivered our new stadium, or the TV because they wanted us to play live on Saturday,” Pochettino continued. “It is difficult for me to answer that question.

“Maybe we need to blame ourselves because we struggled to deal with this type of thing. But of course that is not fair for the players, for the team to compete with a massive disadvantage.

“24 or 48 hours is massive. I would only like to play in the same situation as our opponents. That is the most important, you have the same day to prepare for the game.

“Otherwise, that is not fair and it is a problem that in the future it is a thing we need to change if we want to help the English clubs be stronger in the competition. It’s difficult and going to be more difficult.”

Meanwhile, Mauricio Pochettino admitted to feeling pride after his half-time team-talk at the north London derby was described by Danny Rose as “the best thing he had seen in football”.

However, it will be actions that speak louder than words in Dortmund on Tuesday night as Tottenham must show the mettle to keep the jitters at bay and avoid the disaster that befell them almost three years ago to the day.

The 3-0 defeat in the Europa League is part of what Pochettino sees as his squad’s coming of age – the transformation he has nurtured from a team struggling to get into the Champions League to one that harbours secret dreams even of winning it.

That, of course, is a long way down the line and will involve a huge slice of luck of the draw. But that is the belief Pochettino is now able to plant in the minds of his players.

“It makes me feel very proud to hear Danny say that,” he said at his pre-match press conference. “The message we wanted to translate was for a massive effort in the second half.

“Always the coaches we not only try to provide players with best tools, with the motivational side too and if they got the message in the way he explained it’s a beautiful thing. If they felt that I feel proud.”

According to Rose, the rhetoric was much more uplifting than the ear-bashing served up to Dortmund’s players by their consultant and former club legend Matthias Sammer after Friday’s 2-1 defeat to relegation-threatened Augsburg.

“The players are immature,” Sammer told Eurosport. “Games like this are won in your head, not on the pitch.