Pochettino doesn’t think his book had any impact on Tottenham’s form

Mauricio Pochettino would like to thank the media for helping him sell more copies of his book. That was his reaction in a press conference today when he was asked about whether the timing of Guillem Balague’s book “Brave New World” has had an impact on Tottenham’s flagging form this month.

There’s been a conspiracy-level theory floating around Tottenham that suggests that the release “Brave New World” was timed poorly, and that the revelations and stories about Pochettino and the 2016-17 season might have negatively impacted some of his players.

But Pochettino says that’s all hogwash, and thanked the media for ginning up more interest and sales, nearly spitting out water when the question was asked in a press conference.

“Look when the book appears, different quotes about my book, we beat Real Madrid and Liverpool and we had unbelievable results. First of all I want to say thank you to the people that write this story because it’s more publicity for my book. We are going to help more people because all the money is going to charity. Thank you for this, in this period that is coming at Christmas, we can help more people if we sell more books.”

First of all, I didn’t know that all proceeds from the book were going to charity. That’s pretty neat, and makes me want to buy a few more copies to give to Spurs-loving friends of mine. Secondly, the entire premise is kind of ridiculous, as it implies that the players mentioned in Balague & Pochettino’s “first person biography” didn’t already know about what was in it ahead of time, and would be somehow distracted and distressed by its contents. Finally, having read the book, I know that there isn’t really anything especially damaging or excoriating directed towards any current member of the Tottenham squad.

I guess people want to try and explain a string of bad results and will question virtually anything, but this theory doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Sometimes a bad patch is simply a bad patch.