Mauricio Pochettino: 'Arsene Wenger should focus on Arsenal'

By Daniel Lewis, Senior Reporter | 25 January 2018

Tottenham Hotspur boss Mauricio Pochettino hits out at Arsenal counterpart Arsene Wenger after the Frenchman questioned the Lilywhites' lack of silverware.

Mauricio Pochettino has claimed that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger "made a mistake" talking about Tottenham Hotspur's lack of silverware.

Wenger suggested ahead of the Gunners' EFL Cup semi-final triumph over Chelsea this week that his side's success in cup competitions in recent years has wrongly been overlooked.

The Frenchman believes that the likes of Tottenham and Liverpool, who have won a combined two trophies in the past decade, have avoided the same sort of criticism that Arsenal have had to face.

Asked to respond to the comments, however, Pochettino pointed out that he is still only in the early stages of his managerial career in English football.

"I'm so young and have only been five years in the Premier League, in two clubs Southampton and Tottenham, but there's no point to talk about another team," he told reporters at his weekly press conference.

"Praise? Of course we receive praise. Football is not only to win trophies, it's the circumstances of different clubs. He is and will always be one of the best managers in the world, I respect him, but I think he needs to talk for himself and for Arsenal.

"He is a special manager, but everyone sometimes makes a mistake and for me he made a mistake to talk about us or a different team. It's always massive and very important thing to win trophies with your club. We wish and we hope that one day we can provide to the club one, two or many trophies.

"It's true that we need to work hard on that but it's not easy when you compete in a league like in England, when you compete with massive clubs; it always makes winning a trophy more difficult. We need to create our own history and our own history is very young because it's only about the three-and-a-half years I've had here."

Tottenham, who last lifted silverware in 2008, travel to Newport County in round four of the FA Cup on Saturday evening.