Mauricio Pochettino: Tottenham's intensity and focus returned after unsettling period
Pochettino: "If we show that intensity, then we will fight for big things"
Sunday 15 September 2019 07:27, UK
Mauricio Pochettino admitted Tottenham's "intensity and focus" returned against Crystal Palace after an "unsettling period".
After a sticky start to the campaign, Pochettino's men put in a typically sparky performance to get their season up and running courtesy of a four-goal first-half blitz against Palace to run out 4-0 winners.
Pochettino had questioned his team's togetherness and a lack of desire in their 1-0 home defeat by Newcastle last month when transfer speculation was rife regarding Christian Eriksen and Jan Vertonghen.
However, with the transfer window now closed, Pochettino admitted the real Spurs showed up.
He said: "Today showed the team was unsettled. When a squad is unsettled it's so difficult to perform. I'm not complaining but in football it is so easy to discuss situations. The focus wasn't to play football, it wasn't to try and improve.
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"When you have no focus, it's not easy to perform. We have the quality to win games but we weren't focused. When we are focused it showed today what we can do in the first half. Today we had intensity and concentration - we know what we need to do. When you are able to do that, the quality appears. We have tremendous quality and unbelievable players.
"If we show that intensity, then for sure we will fight for big things.
"I am so happy to recover that feeling. Now we must keep pushing. That was the first step of the season."
Palace manager Roy Hodgson admitted the opening 45 minutes from his side was not good enough and felt the only real positive was Mamadou Sakho playing the whole match for the first time since February.
"We are obviously unhappy with our first-half performance. All of us are prepared to accept the responsibility for that. We didn't show the intensity I hoped we would, but I don't want to take too much away from Tottenham during that spell because they played very well," he said.
"I am glad it didn't become more than four. That is bad enough, so I didn't want any more.
"The only real positive I can take from the game is Mamadou Sakho, after such a long lay-off and such a long time out through injury, got through 90 minutes in a very tough game."
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