Ah yes the story the club were coming out with, because they’re always a shining beacon of honestly and transparency! And most specifically Steve Hitchen, the bloke supposedly behind some of our worst transfer windows in ENICs entire tenure and who openly stated that he “hates” the transfer window, of course he’s going to peddle his own canoe!
I’ve said this many times, I’ve no doubt Pochettino vetoed many players in his final 4/6 windows, but there is an absolutely massive difference between “not wanting to spend” and rejecting some of the utter garbage that was offered up to him by the recruitment team and Levy. He was sick of the second choice bargain bin options. The man got us closer to winning the league than any manager had in decades and he rightly wanted the club to “be brave” as he constantly called for and go and get some proper players.
A classic example is in January 2019. We sold Mousa Dembele to China without any replacement. Yes he wasn’t the player he was, but he was still playing PL games for us right until he left and was still our best central midfielder.
Supposedly the player offered up to replace him was Youri Tielemans on loan. Now Tielemans is a fine serviceable player, but considering where we were in terms of league stature at that point and how good and important to us Dembele was , to offer Tielemans as a replacement was an insult to the manager that had worked miracles for season upon season. No other manager from any other top team in the league would have stood for it and Pochettino was absolutely right to tell Levy to shove it.
