Mauricio Pochettino doesn't blame Kyle Walker for leaving Spurs for Manchester City

Mauricio Pochettino says he doesn’t blame Kyle Walker for moving to Manchester City, and that Tottenham Hotspur cannot expect every player to agree with their long-term strategy - but insisted such attitudes will not influence or change their plan.

The full-back moved to the Etihad in a £53m deal in the summer, amid a period that saw a lot of discussion about whether many of Spurs’ greatly desired squad would look to move on in similar circumstances, and faces his old side for the first time this Saturday.

Pochettino said he is looking forward to seeing him again and accepts his decision, but stressed again how Spurs are on schedule.

“Exactly, that is the problem,” the Argentine said when asked about about how some players can’t afford to wait for Spurs to reach the final steps of their plan, when they move into a new stadium. “Maybe some players are not agreed with this strategy, and of course they are right to complain, to talk and in the end to move or have another challenge for different reasons, because we are all different and we all have different challenges, motivations, roles in our life. That is normal.

"The most important thing is to talk, to design the plan for everyone and then be happy everyone because life is about enjoying and being happy. It’s not about wasting time in a bad way, because life is so short.

“It’s human nature that the players always want to improve, and have different challenges and ideas. But I am not worried, because in the end it’s always three parts in all the situations in football – the players, the club that owns the players, and if another club want some players, and in the end it’s to be agreed on different things and try to make everyone happy with the decision.

"We’re not worried. We know how our project is and who we are, and in the end we try to develop our project not only thinking about today and tomorrow, but thinking long-term. That is so important, because it’s not only that we need to win today, tomorrow, after tomorrow. We need to win today, tomorrow and in one year and two, three, four years. That is the plan for Tottenham. It may be completely different than others teams, that the most important thing is to win today.

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"That is a good point for the debate when people assess us and compare with another team. The plan is of course to win today and tomorrow, but to win in four years too, not only win today and what happens tomorrow is another day.”

“We keep a very good relationship,” Pochettino said of Walker. “It’s always good, after three seasons together, when a lot of things happened. It’s always good to see the players that were with you and players that did a lot for the club, or did a lot for myself, to try to help me to achieve all that we wanted, and it’s good to see him because we’re people that did a lot for him to try to achieve all that he wanted. In the end. It’s good to see him.”