Pochettino pulls no punches when reflecting on ‘sloppy’ Spurs display

Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino was honest in his assessment of his side’s “sloppy” performance at Watford.

Spurs were brought crashing down to earth as the Hornets kept their 100 per cent Premier League record going with a 2-1 win at Vicarage Road.

Spurs made a real early-season statement with a 3-0 demolition of Manchester United on Monday night to make it three wins from three, but they could not follow it up as the Hornets beat them for the first time in 11 Premier League meetings.

The visitors had gone in front early in the second half when Abdoulaye Doucoure scored an own goal but headers from Troy Deeney and Craig Cathcart in the space of seven minutes turned it around for the hosts, who have won their first four league games of a season for the first time since 1988.

The Argentine has admitted that they lacked the strength and aggression to deal with their opponents.

“First half we were so relaxed, so sloppy,” he said. “We dominated the game but we weren’t aggressive enough. When you want to win and show you are a contender you cannot say we are going to play football for five minutes and in the second half we are going to win.

“In two set-pieces we concede two goals. If you want to be a contender, if you want to be on the top you cannot concede this type of action. You need more strength defending because in that situation it is when you really show that you want to win. It is not about the talk.

“It is the reality and everyone saw the reality. It is so easy to explain what happened on the pitch in 95 minutes.

“When you lose you must learn and improve but my disappointment is when you win and maybe you didn’t deserve to win, why no learn?

“During the week I was trying to explain to the players we weren’t as great as the perception and the reality was completely different.”

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