So yesterday, Tottenham Hotspur announced their 3rd manager in under a year. And how they celebrated. It was as if they had won the Champions League (you have not, Gareth Bale plays for Real Madrid now, he does not care about you). Mauricio Pochettino will be the 11th different permanent Spurs manager that Arsene Wenger has faced. And I see no reason why he will not see his latest challenger off, despite the reported 5 year contract.

You see, Mauricio Pochettino is not a great manager, despite the hype. You only have to look at his history, firstly at Espanyol, then at Southampton.

Firstly at Espanyol, he did not exactly work miracles. With a win percentage of just 32.92%, he left them bottom of Li Liga with 9 points from 13 games. At Southampton, whilst an 8th place finish does look miraculous, a win percentage of 38.33% is not so. It perhaps indicates how poor the lower half of the Premier League was last season.

Add in the fact that he came into Southampton with a very good set up, and a lot of very good players in place, mid table was their par finish. With 2 mid table finishes at both Espanyol and Southampton, it is clear he is a mid table manager. Looks like Spurs are finally realising their level – although the fans need to catch up, they are claiming they will launch a title challenge next season.

Of course, with a new manager comes the theory that he will bring across a whole host of players who performed well at his previous club. This is rarely true. And anyway, whilst Southampton have some good players, they were only players good enough to get them to 8th. There main talent, Luke Shaw, will surely aim higher than Spurs. Adam Lallana is overpriced at £25m. Jay Rodriguez is out until Christmas. Rickie Lambert is 32. I would be very surprised Spurs can attract any of these.

Remember, Tottenham need to sell to buy. They are currently hamstrung financially by the planning of their new stadium. You only have to look at the last 5 years to see the precarious situation they are in financially:

2009/10 – £1,000,000 profit
20010/11 – £17,500,000 loss
2011/12 – £27,000,000 profit
2012/13 – £1,300,000 profit
2013/14 – £9,800,000 profit

So the deluded Spurs fans, who are sitting their expecting Pochettino to come waltzing in and have £50m to spend on new talent are misguided. He will have to sell before he can buy. And Spurs do not really have much in the cupboard to sell. Last year was the big roll of the dice, bringing in £113,500,000 in sales, it allowed them to spend over £100,000,000, but they bought duffs. They would recoup less than half of that if they were to sell all the players they bought last year.

So Spurs, you are behaving like the court jester once more. Talk of a title challenge, talk of new players, next season, you will be where you always are, mid table.

Keenos