Mauricio Pochettino will set out to improve the mental preparation of his Tottenham squad after revealing he forced himself to sit and watch their recent defeat to Liverpool over 20 times.
Having won their opening two English Premier League matches under former Southampton coach Pochettino, Spurs were humbled as Liverpool won 3-0 at White Hart Lane ahead of the international break.
That gap in fixtures gave Pochettino and his backroom staff a chance to examine the performance of the players in great detail – with the Argentine keen on arming his side with more mental strength in the future.
“It is true that we were a little bit unlucky in the key moments in the game,” he said.
“I think that we watched it more than 20 times and every single detail has been analysed. We are a team that needs to learn and improve. We are under a new philosophy but I’m happy with the way we are.
“Because we had time, we had two weeks to prepare for Sunderland and a lot of players were away. We had time to analyse it.
“We need to improve in a lot of things but we need to improve our mental preparation. This is an important way to work in this club.
“We need to create this winning mentality and believe in our skill and our power. This is the one thing we need to improve.”
Liverpool led from the early stages as Raheem Sterling put them ahead inside the opening 10 minutes, with Pochettino wanting a brighter start from his players – starting at Sunderland on Saturday.
“We made individual charts for different groups (of players) but we analysed it all,” he added.
“The most important thing was that we analysed the first seven minutes because that was the key.
“We need to have a chat, we need to watch clips about different situations and work hard. We need to improve each other.
“It is done all together because it is difficult to separate. It’s holistic – physical and mental (strength) all together.”
Despite believing Tottenham’s performance merited a better result against last season’s runners-up, Pochettino did reveal he showed his unhappiness at the players following the defeat.
He said: “After the game I was angry but it’s football, you need to have luck because we were unlucky and conceded a goal and after we had the possibility to score but it wasn’t our day.
“The team played well and tried but in the second half the penalty made it 2-0 and Liverpool have a lot of good attacking players who are fast and it was difficult.
“Yes, that was the angriest I have been here but the players were not surprised because in two months sometimes you are angry for different things.”
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