Danny Rose has opened up on former Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino’s brutal training sessions. The Tottenham loanee revealed that the Argentine hardly gave time off to anyone in the team.
Last year before Poch’s sacking, it was being reported that Spurs players were unhappy about Pochettino’s training intensity. It was also reported that players blamed the Argentine for the club’s dismal start to the Premier League campaign. Tottenham’s on loan left-back Rose has also revealed the same.
“I think [it takes time to adapt], especially for foreign managers. You hear what regimes are like when managers come in,” Rose told the Lockdown Tactics Podcast.
“I heard that Conte had a strict regime when he came in at Chelsea and I heard that he wasn’t willing to compromise in any shape or form.
“Even under Poch, he had a different culture to the British. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand it – you know the British like to have a drink – it was just something that he couldn’t get his head around.”
Rose also revealed that Pochettino didn’t allow the players to even have a drink after their brilliant comeback win against Ajax in the Champions League semi-finals.
“He’s another one. He wasn’t willing to compromise on that either. Even after we beat Ajax in the Champions League semi-final and it was obviously the biggest night of our careers. On the flight home, we weren’t allowed a drink.
“It was ‘no you’re training tomorrow, you’re up at 9 am’. So it’s just one of those things. British managers do different things.
“Foreign managers, sometimes it’ll take them time to adapt or for the players to adapt to them. It’s something that is just one of those things in football.
“That night [in Amsterdam] in the changing room and we went back out to the fans, for that hour I felt on top of the world. Then we got back on the plane and we were trying to have a drink and he wasn’t having it.
“He was like ‘no we’ve got a game on Saturday’. The night was over.
“I do fully respect what he’s done but at the same time with that Champions League semi-final we’d been together since we were 22 or 23, so for me, that’s all I’d known for the past five or six years, you’d play and then get one day off if you’re lucky and that’s it, you’re grafting for the rest of the week.”
Danny Rose also admitted that he is enjoying football under Newcastle manager Steve Bruce. The English international joined Newcastle United in the January transfer window on a 6-months loan.
“So now I’m at Newcastle, you’re getting two or three days off a week if you win, so I’m thinking what’s going on here then? It’s a shock to the system.
“We’d only get one day off if we were lucky under Poch. Even in international breaks, he’d see the ones who would go away as having a holiday because training isn’t as hard with your national team.
“So if you weren’t in the national team you were getting beasted in training.
“You’d only get Saturday or Sunday off and then you’d get somewhere like Liverpool where they’re getting seven to 10 days off.
“We’ve been programmed a certain way in the last five or six years and going to Newcastle it’s different.
“I’ve missed playing for a British manager and I’m getting used to it again.”
Danny Rose was not included in Tottenham’s pre-season squad. But as the club and the player couldn’t find a potential suitor, Rose started featuring in the starting lineup in the Premier League. He joined Newcastle on a 6-months loan. He has just one more season remaining on his contract and Tottenham will try to find a suitable club for him in the upcoming transfer window.
