Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino says he has no desire to swap the dugout for a TV studio following the criticism levelled at Dele Alli.
The Spurs midfielder, whose form over the last 18 months has crashed, found himself on the end of some stinging reviews from Sky Sports pundits Gary Neville, Graeme Souness and Roy Keane after his disappointing performance in the 2-1 loss at Liverpool.
“Half the player he used to be”, “thinks he’s a model” and “sat in an armchair” were just some of the opinions levelled at him by the trio, who went to town in their analysis.
Pochettino has never had a problem with people getting paid to offer their opinion, but insists it is not something he would like to do.
“No, in my mind it is going to be difficult,” he said. “In football I respect all the opinions but (I couldn’t do it) because I respect too much the job of manager and players.
“And because when you are not in the place you have all the information and then when you give your opinion people in the club are laughing about your opinion.
“And if you go and talk in public in the end it is very dangerous. To be honest I don’t like too much. One day I may change my mind and say I go, but today no because the responsibility is massive.
“If you concede a goal you need to criticise the action because someone made a mistake.
“Sometimes the people are not happy because you put a finger on the action and in the moment you are going to criticise when someone missed an action like that. You create a bad feeling.”
The pundits were taking fire at Alli because his level has dropped so far from a couple of years ago, when his form made him one of the most exciting prospects in Europe.
He is still only 23 and Pochettino has no doubts that he will rediscover his best form and also the devilment that also made him one of the feistiest players around.
“Dele, we talk a lot about Dele,” the Argentinian said.
“Always I will support my player, and support my squad. When you don’t win, or at the level of this team, always we are observed and exposed to the opinions of different people.
“The most important thing is to pay attention to yourself and work hard. We know very well that Dele is going to be back.
“We spoke with him about improving different areas. But for sure the devil is going to appear again. I don’t know when. But for sure it will.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here