Tottenham vs Burnley: Mauricio Pochettino delighted with ‘massive achievement’ of maintaining title push

Mauricio Pochettino was delighted with the “massive, massive achievement” of Tottenham maintaining their title push by beating Burnley 1-0 at Wembley this afternoon.

Spurs are still five points behind Manchester City after today’s victory, and when asked about the plausibility of another title challenge from his team this year, Pochettino said that what really mattered was belief.

But after turning around their Champions League campaign after taking just one point from their first three games but still making it through to the last-16, Pochettino said that his squad have proven the power of belief. They believed in themselves then and achieved something that no-one thought they were capable of. Now there is a prospect of them doing similar in the Premier League.

“We are in a very good positon, we are there, that is the reality after 17 games with 39 points,” Pochettino said. “We are third in the table. This is a massive massive achievement for us. We are there, we are close. In football all is possible. After PSV, we had only one point from three [group] games, and no-one believed, but we believed.

“And at the end we achieved it, and in the next stage of the Champions League. There are lots of things in consideration, but the most important thing in football is belief and faith in the way you play and work. If you give 100%, then all can happen.”

Spurs mounted serious title challenges in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons and while Pochettino did not want to be drawn on whether they could win the title this year, he did say that his team would not suffer from not believing enough in themselves. “I don’t want to say that, people are going to twist my words,” he said.

“I can tell you that all is possible in football. All can happen. We are going to try, like in previous seasons we try to win. Maybe this season it can happen. The most important is to give your best trying.”

Pochettino was especially pleased that Spurs won after a draining week when they went to Barcelona on Tuesday night and got the crucial point to send them through to the next stage of the Champions League.

“It was fully deserved. I think we knew very well we needed to play for 90 mins, plus the four or five minutes added time. But all is possible if you try, and believe. I am so happy, we deserved the win, we played much better than the opponent. We didn’t concede one shot on target, so it would be frustrating if we did not win the three points.

“I am very happy, relieved, the win is massive for us, the three points keep our place in the Premier League table. After the massive effort, to finish week in that way is so good.”