Pochettino spokes out on whether his squad is strong enough to compete

A depleted Tottenham Hotspur return to Premier League action this weekend against Cardiff City at Wembley. Cardiff City are yet to win a game this season and are already favourites for a swift return to the Championship. Pochettino looks to bounce back from their 4-2 defeat to Barcelona in the Champions league in Midweek. Ahead of the game, Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino faced the media. Poch on Cardiff I think with full respect to Cardiff it will be a tough game too. In the Premier League, there are no easy games. Everyone can think the motivation to play against Barcelona and it looks like we are going to play Saturday and it will be an easy game. For me, it’s the opposite. The most difficult game is the game that everyone believes outside of the team that you must win. For us, it’s so important to be motivated at the same level. If not we are going to struggle. There are a lot of examples in football when you don’t respect the opponent. We have full respect to Cardiff. It will be so tough. It has been difficult to beat them for different teams. We were watching. I think a similar style or philosophy to Huddersfield and it was so tough for us to beat them. Of course, they are three important points that we have ahead. We’re so focused on trying to not be affected by Wednesday. It’s true the effort was massive. We need to be ready. The competition doesn’t wait for you. We need to be ready again to play tomorrow. Poch on whether his squad is strong enough to compete I think we need to split, if we want to compare with Barcelona quality or level, it’s not fair to compare Tottenham today with Barcelona. Then I think we have a squad enough to compete. Then we showed on Wednesday that our squad is enough to compete in every single game if we are brave like we were. Of course to win this type of match you need to be lucky and not make a mistake. Of course how we started the game was so difficult and tough, the worst way you can think or prepare, but that is football. The most important thing is how we reacted and how the team fought and never game up. At 3-2 in the game, we had four or five actions that were so close to scoring and draw the game. I think the most important thing is the relief of the Barca players when Messi scored the last goal. How they behaved on the pitch is showing how much respect they had for us and showed that the game always was open and Tottenham was amazing in the way we fight. Of course, disappointed that the result wasn’t positive, but the image and the way we played and performed and our character were fantastic and I feel so proud about that. Poch on whether he has any doubts over Hugo Lloris No doubt. Who made the mistake? The first every day is me. Everyone can make a mistake. The reaction was fantastic and the performance was good, of course, we lose the game but I think there’s no doubt about Hugo. He is one of the best goalkeepers in the world. That has not changed. Nothing has changed in my mind, how I think about him.

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