Mauricio Pochettino left Saints under a cloud with supporters questioning whether he ever really had any affection or loyalty for the club, with his latest out burst we now have the answers to those questions.
In an interview with a Catalan radio station the transcript of which is in the Daily Mail Pochettino claimed that Ronald Koeman took over a ready made team at Southampton whilst poor little Mauricio had to start from zero at White Hart Lane.
‘You have to say that they invested close to 80m euros in the summer and it was already a winning team on the up. When we arrived at Southampton in January of 2013 they had the team that had conceded the most goals in the league.
'It was a team with a lot of problems, with players like Adam Lallana who wasn’t playing and Luke Shaw who wasn’t playing but in one and a half years we turned it round.
‘We brought a lot of young players through and finished eighth. It is always easier taking over a winning team which is the case this time with Ronald [Koeman]. We came here and had to reinvent things. We always laugh about it because we left a team at Southampton that practically trained itself after a year and a half to come here where we had to recreate everything that we had done at Southampton, pretty much from zero, but it’s a great challenge.’
So that is the truth as Mauricio Pochettino sees it, so lets look at the facts.
Pochettino fails to point out that although yes we invested around 80m euros, we had already seen around 95m come in due to player sales, that being the case the winning team on the up had already been dismantled and Koeman had lost 5 key players not to mention Jay Rodriguez through injury, to say he was inheiriting a "winning team on the up" is totally untrue, indeed it was a team that had finished 13 points behind his new club Spurs, who although they sold off a number of players in the summer these were mainly fringe players and Pochettino wasted no time in reinvesting that money.
When Pochettino took over at Saints in January 2013 Saints sat in 15th in the Premier League with 22 points from 22 games and 3 points off of the relegation zone, but this was not a team in trouble, it was a team that had recovered after a disastrous start to the season, it had only been beaten twice in its last 12 league games , a run which had earned 18 points, Pochettino was inheiriting a side on the up, as for the claim that it had conceded more goals than any other team, that was just a plain lie, Saints 40 goals against was not great, but 14 of them had been in the opening 4 games of the season, even though, when Nigel Adkins was sacked, there were still 3 other teams wh had conceded 40 or more.
The next lie is that Adam Lallana and Luke Shaw were not playing, Shaw had started every league game since his full debut at West Brom back at the start of November and Adam Lallana was injured, indeed it would be Pochettino's 5th match before he was fit enough to start a game, so the inference that these two players were being ignored in a losing side is just plain untrue.
Pochettino also claimes that in his time at Saints he brought a lot of youngsters through, that again is a myth, Luke Shaw was already established as the first choice left back before he arrived at the club and James Ward Prowse had likewise made the breakthrough, indeed just about the only player that Pochettino used with any regularity after introducing them to the side was Calum Chambers and even then that was only when Nathaniel Clyne was injured, Pochettino's side might have trained itself, but it also picked itself as it was always very predictable who would be in the starting line up and who would be brought on as sub.
In fact in season 2012/14 Mauricio Pochettino gained 19 points from his 16 games that season, coincidentally exactly the same number that Nigel Adkins gained in his last 16, the inference that Pochettino inherited the leakiest defence in the league goes out the window when you consider that in those 16 games , Pochettino conceded 20 goals compared to Adkins massive 22 in his last 16, although poor old Nigel did have the accolade in that his side in scoring 20 got one more than his successor.
So if Mauricio Pochettino is claiming that he came in and rebuilt the team and took them up a notch, that s not borne out by actual fact, in that first season the results achieved by Pochettino were as we can see almost identical to Nigel Adkins over the same number of games
So for Pochettino to ridicule Ronald Koeman's achievements at Saints, indeed to openly say that he and the coaches that jumped ship "always laugh about it" ie in what great foundations they had left Koeman with is just too arrogant to put into words, at best its just delusional and at worst just plain lies, this coming from a man who signed Osvaldo.
Indeed It was Pochettino that took over a club that was a "winning team" as was shown by their league position, in fact his success in the past month or so could be said to be fortuitous, Calum Chambers was a player that Pochettino often only picked as a last resort and that was the case with Harry Kane this season at Spurs.
So if Saints fans needed any convincing that Mauricio Pochettino was a wrong un at Saints, then the words in this interview confirm that, here is a man so vain that he cannot countenance anything other than his own greatness, like another ex Saints and Spurs boss Harry Redknapp, he is prepared to make innacurate statements that are easily dismissed by looking at statistics in order to give the impression that the world revolves around Mauricio Pochettino.
Of course Pochettino moved Saints forward a little, but it was not to the degree that he would have us believe, Southampton Football Club is well rid of a man who clearly never had Saints in his heart but only his own self serving interests, perhaps time may prove otherwise but I feel that Ronald Koeman is an honourable man who will do his best for Saints, of course he will leave, but when he does it will not be as Pochettino did, underhand and sneaky.
Saints had a lucky escape last summer, they lost a one trick pony and gained a manager who can truly make a difference.