Mauricio Pochettino braced for old pals act as Manchester City and Pep Guardiola visit Tottenham
Poch joked that former Barcelona boss Pep stole all his coaches while he was manager of Espanyol
MAURICIO POCHETTINO says it will be friends reunited at White Hart Lane today – after Pep Guardiola poached his staff.
The Tottenham boss faced the Manchester City chief while at Espanyol, whose rivals were led by Guardiola’s Barcelona.
Poch said: “As we are from Barcelona, we were together, Lorenzo Buenaventura was my sport scientist at Espanyol, then Eduardo Mauri was my doctor at Espanyol and Guardiola signed all people from Espanyol!
“I think we have a very good relationship, with Pep too. We met before we start the season, in Barcelona, we have a very good relationship between both coaching staff.
“I also played with Mikel Arteta at Paris Saint-Germain.”
Both managers have played down having similar styles at Spurs and City – but Poch admits they share the same philosophy on goalkeepers.
Pep axed Joe Hart to get sweeper-keeper Claudio Bravo, while Spurs captain Hugo Lloris is among the quickest off his line.
Pochettino said: “The goalkeeper is a very important function because when the defensive line is higher he needs to be out of the box.
“He needs to be focused and vigilant to what happens behind the back four.
On that we work hard during the week, we try to be ready to compete in the way we want to compete.”