Pochettino in a pickle as Spurs seek to banish Wembley woes

Mauricio Pochettino has previous when it comes to Europa League-bashing. The Tottenham Hotspur manager referred to it in February 2014 as a "competition that kills you" and one in which he had "no interest" when he was at Southampton and it looked as though they had the chance to qualify for it.

And how about this from April 2015, after his first taste of the tournament with Tottenham? The club's participation had ended with defeat against Fiorentina in the last 32. "It affects your domestic league," Pochettino said. "It was my opinion when I was at Southampton and, having had a Europa League season, I can now confirm that it is very difficult to manage the Europa League with the Premier League and both cups."

It is possible to portray Pochettino as being in something of a pickle. On the one hand, he wants his Tottenham team to achieve a positive result against CSKA Moscow on Wednesday night in their final Champions League Group E tie – largely in order to prove they can excel at Wembley. They will go no further in this season's tournament because of their defeats there against Monaco and Bayer Leverkusen and next season Spurs are set to play their home programme in all competitions there.

As the defender Jan Vertonghen made clear, they sorely need to lay the Wembley ghost to rest. "We want to show everyone it's not Wembley that's bothering us," Vertonghen said. "We know it's not a Wembley thing and we want to show that to the world."

Weakened team

On the other hand, a win or draw against CSKA would lead to Spurs entering into the last 32 of the Europa League and we all know how Pochettino has felt about that in the past. Last season, Tottenham exited the competition in the last 16 after Pochettino had played a weakened team at Borussia Dortmund; Spurs were well beaten.

At the very least, the merits of the Europa League were a tough sell for Pochettino and there was a revealing moment when he struggled to describe the Thursday night-Sunday afternoon cycle that comes with it as being anything other than a “psychological” problem.

“It’s harder to play Thursday and Sunday,” Pochettino said. “It’s psychological because you wait for Sunday. Our habit now is [to play] Saturday three o’clock – that’s the best time to play. Thursday you travel, you’re back late, Friday is difficult. It’s tough. It’s not a factor we can prove. It’s more psychological.”

Pochettino admitted "maybe, it's an advantage for Chelsea and Liverpool" to have no European football this season but, in the next breath, he made the point that he was desperate to return to the Champions League. He did his best to talk the talk and, like Vertonghen, he brought up the need to beat CSKA to "make Wembley our home – it's not fair to blame Wembley".

Pochettino noted how it was impossible to want to lose a game and that the Europa League could provide European experience for the squad’s younger players. There is little doubt that it is easier to rotate key personnel in the Europa League; they tend to take a dimmer view of being left out of Champions League lineups.

Alternative route

Pochettino also sought to stress the opportunity that the Europa League stood to provide, not only for silverware but to give an alternative route back into the Champions League. The winners qualify automatically. Yet it was easy to wonder whether Pochettino would reserve the right to prioritise other competitions over the final months of the season, as circumstances dictated. “Now is not the moment to say only Premier League or FA Cup,” he said. Might it be in February or March?

Pochettino has been boosted by the return to fitness of Toby Alderweireld after the knee injury he sustained at West Bromwich Albion in mid-October, although the defender is likely to be eased back as a substitute. Ben Davies is still out with ankle damage, while Erik Lamela has been allowed to return to Argentina because his brother is in hospital. Lamela is unavailable as he continues to struggle with a hip problem.

“Maybe, it’s important to tell our supporters that Lamela has a problem with a family member in Argentina and he travelled to Argentina last night,” Pochettino said. “We want to send him our support. He has a problem with his brother. We hope it’s not too serious but it’s an issue and he needed to go to Argentina now.” Guardian service