Tottenham Manager Mauricio Pochettino Believes He Has An “unbelievable squad”

Mauricio Pochettino: Tottenham manager believes he has an “unbelievable squad”

Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino believes he has an “unbelievable squad”, but refused to be drawn on any attempt to recruit Morgan Schneiderlin from Southampton.

French midfielder Schneiderlin is determined to join his former manager at White Hart Lane, despite Southampton boss Ronald Koeman insisting the 24-year old is not for sale.

Pochettino has already brought in goalkeeper Michel Vorm, defenders Ben Davies and Eric Dier, all players
the Argentinian believes will help the club finish in the top four of the Premier League.

"I think we have an unbelievable squad," he said.

"Last season the club made a big investment and signed unbelievable players.

The most important thing is to develop our players and to provide the best team to play on the pitch."

When asked of his pursuit of £15million-rated Schneiderlin, the former Saints boss said:

"No, it is not my style to speak about a player from another club, I don't like that. I have full respect for all of them and I have nothing to say."

Tottenham open the new campaign at West Ham, and then play a Europa League qualifier against AEL Limassol before heading across London again to tackle promoted QPR.

Pochettino sees no reason why Tottenham cannot move forward in 2014-2015.

"We want to improve every time, but we need to learn," he added. "Our style is always to get a feel for the player and after to try to get the best out of them for the team and for the club.

The 42-year old, speaking in English unlike when at Southampton, added: "At the moment our challenge is putting into practice our philosophy, our system.

"We know we need time to improve our new system, our new philosophy, but we are very happy at the moment.

We improve quickly and the most important thing is we are ready to play and compete."

The Tottenham boss will assess those players who returned late from international duty at the World Cup - three Belgians and Brazil's Paulinho - before naming his squad to take to Upton Park.

"We need to analyse some players because they arrived late from the World Cup and we need to improve their physical condition," he said.

"At the moment I have my ideas in my mind but I need one more day to decide the 18 players for playing against West Ham on Saturday."

England winger Andros Townsend should be in contention having missed the end of last season and the World Cup with an ankle problem.