At last, Mauricio Pochettino’s message gets through to his Tottenham players

Mauricio Pochettino’s message got through. The manager had been very clear with his players this week, in public and in private, that they had to improve how they defended set pieces. That had been the problem that has plagued Spurs all season, and sent them on a run of three straight defeats, their worst record under Pochettino.

All that work was rewarded at the Amex Stadium on Saturday evening. It was not quite a clean sheet, with Tottenham conceding a goal in added time, to Pochettino’s fury. But it was certainly an improvement on the late collapse against Inter, the shambles against Liverpool or the second half surrender at Watford.

When Spurs did concede it was from a counter-attack, and barring one Lewis Dunk header over the bar, Tottenham were stronger from set pieces than they had been in recent weeks. Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen got their heads on everything, showing the same character and aggression, that sense that losing the ball in the box was a personal insult or a dishonour, exactly the same attitude Pochettino had been encouraging in them.

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Given how strong Brighton are on set pieces, it was a vindication of all the work Pochettino had done with his players this week. “We played against Brighton, who for me in the past few weeks, or maybe since the beginning of the season, is the best team in set pieces,” Pochettino said. “They are so strong, and they work so hard in that aspect.”

This is why Pochettino had been showing his team videos of what good set-piece defending is meant to look like. “In the few days previous we worked less, but we worked a lot on the video, rather than on the pitch,” he revealed. “I showed that it’s all about mentality, be aggressive. I think today the team was fantastic in the way they defended. Football is about organisation, and it’s also about translating the philosophy that you want. It’s mentality, it’s fighting, it’s being available always to give your best. Today the spirit was fantastic and that is what pleased me the most.”

So Pochettino’s video lessons with the players had mirrored what he said in his press conference on Thursday. There, he repeated his argument that the solution to Spurs’ defensive woes was in the heads of the players. There is only so much that can be done on the training ground. “It is about having something on the inside, being strong,” Pochettino had said. “Being strong, it’s not a thing you can work on too much. You can work on your organisation, you can work on the line, higher or deeper. From a corner, you can use different positions. But in the end, it’s up to them. You can’t do too much from the outside.”

The evidence of Saturday evening, with every header Alderweireld and Vertonghen won, is that that message had got through. They played as Pochettino had told them, as if any lost header would have been an insult or a dishonour to two of the best defenders in the country. “The spirit we showed today is the spirit I wanted to see in all the games,” Pochettino said tonight. “I am happy with the attitude, spirit. That is what pleases me the most.”