It has been less than a week since the terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday night, which were followed by an emotional night at Wembley on Tuesday as England hosted France in a strong show of unity and solidarity.
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While Pochettino is delighted to see Alli’s rapid progress, he is keen to keep the growing hype under control. “We need to give him the possibility to be part of the team”. “We can’t be better without Payet, I have no problems saying that. We need to be clever for the next few years to stick to the way we have chosen, improve our squad and the way we work to try to get success for our supporters by winning some trophies”.
Asked whether Alli is in line for a new deal just 11 months after signing for Spurs, Pochettino went on: “It is step by step”.
He said: “He was like a senior player”.
Tottenham are taking the plaudits for the progress of their young English players but Mauricio Pochettino insists they would be far less effective without their experienced colleagues. The best way to pay a tribute to the families and people of Paris is to do our job, to play, and I think they’re in a good condition to play.
“Our responsibility is firstly to provide the club where you work with an identity and a good balance”.
“Football is about balance, not only on the pitch but off it, in the changing room”. The French players, the Belgian players, the English players, we all share the same pain for what happened. Maybe today everyone’s speaking about the English players that we have at Tottenham, but to be fair we have very good players from outside too and they deserve the full credit too – like Hugo [Lloris], like [Jan] Vertonghen, [Heung-Min] Son, [Erik] Lamela, [Nacer] Chadli, [Christian] Eriksen, [Mousa] Dembele and all of them.
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“We know we’re always going to score goals with Harry (Kane) up top and the likes of Christian and Sonny behind him”.
