Tottenham

American goalkeeper Brad Friedel has come out in support of Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino, who saw his team suffer a third league defeat in the last five matches. Pochettino came as the replacement for Tim Sherwood in the summer too much expectation. After all, he had done exceedingly well in his previous job as the manager at Southampton. He managed to get the club close to a top six place despite being on a fairly limited budget. Pochettino has not spent a lot of money at Tottenham, as he has primarily concentrated on trimming down the squad.

After the numerous purchases last summer, Tottenham have a severely bloated squad. Even though results at the start of the season were extremely good, they have turned sour of late. This is returning to put Pochettino’s position at the club in peril.

Chairman Daniel Levy has previously shown that he will not think about sacking of manager if results are poor continuously. Tottenham’s latest defeat came in the hands of Stoke in front of their home supporters at White Hart Lane. In fact, their form at home has been very poor this campaign with four out of the five defeats coming here.

Friedel, though, has backed Pochettino to turn round the situation and start delivering results in the coming weeks.“It’s very much early days. The new manager has come in and he’s going to have his own style of play.

I don’t think it’s a secret what his style actually is if you’ve watched his previous teams Espanyol and Southampton. It’s very physical and very much in the face of other teams. He wants to play with high energy and to press high. It’s like when most managers go into a new club, they need a bit of time to get their players playing the way that they want,” said Friedel.