Mauricio Pochettino claims his current Tottenham side have yet to show they are his best Spurs team, despite arguably boasting his most talented roster.
Last season saw Spurs challenge for the Premier League title for the first half of the year and though they faded in the latter portion of the domestic campaign, they pushed all the way to the Champions League final.
Though defeated by Liverpool in the European final, Tottenham's run was impressive given they did not make a single transfer in the preceding summer and winter windows.
This season appeared to have rectified that, with Spurs spending over £100 million ($125m) in the transfer market, while keeping the likes of stars Christian Eriksen and Toby Alderweireld.
However, Spurs have won just two of their first five Premier League games and drew their Champions League opener at Olimpiacos, leading Pochettino to doubt this squad is as good as last season’s.
“We will see at the end of the season,” Pochettino told reporters. “At the moment I don’t believe this is the best squad.
“But I think if you only see the results... it’s easy to say the better squad was last season’s squad because we got to the final of the Champions League.
“But we will see if we can repeat, or if we win some trophy, maybe we can talk about this is being the best squad.”
Catherine Ivill
Part of the issue in the early going of the season, at least in Pochettino’s estimation, was transfer uncertainty surrounding players such as Eriksen.
It was uncertain if the Dane and others would remain past the close of the European transfer window, and Pochettino was vocal in his belief it was hurting Spurs’ performance.
He stands by that criticism, but thinks the squad is starting to put those problems behind them.
“I know I’m going to get criticised for being too honest when I said the team wasn’t settled enough to be ready to compete but that was the truth,” he said.
“I didn’t say that the rumours were unsettling the team. I said that personal situations every single season change... when different situations happen at the same time, in the same room, it is normal that you need to be careful about how you are going to manage and after you need time to refocus the goal.”
“I think we are improving and I think we have a massive room to improve and for sure I’m very optimistic that we are going to improve a lot.”
Tottenham picked up their second win of the Premier League campaign last week against Crystal Palace and will look to make it two straight domestically when they face Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Saturday.
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