Mauricio Pochettino has categorically ruled out a move to Barcelona because of his allegiance to their crosstown rivals Espanyol. The Tottenham Hotspur manager reinforced the point he wanted to make about the primacy of loyalty by saying that, by the same token, he could never imagine himself working at Arsenal.



Pochettino was linked with the Barcelona job early this month, after Luis Enrique said he would stand down at the end of the season and he did little to discourage the speculation. Then Pochettino talked about how he knew how the game worked and that he was not surprised to be on the long-list of potential successors to Luis Enrique.

The link between Pochettino and Barça was reignited last week when he was spotted in a Barcelona bar with the club’s president, Josep Maria Bartomeu. But Pochettino dismissed it as a chance meeting and, given that he previously played for and managed Espanyol, he made it clear there was no possibility of him ever going to Barcelona. “It was a coincidence in a bar in Barcelona last Tuesday,” Pochettino said. “I know him [Bartomeu] for a long time – before he became chairman of Barcelona. Our children went to the same school in Barcelona. We spent five minutes together. That was the reality. After that you know the rumour is impossible to stop.

“But I am an Espanyol supporter. I don’t think I need to speak too much. It’s like if one day [the Tottenham chairman] Daniel Levy sacked me – in a few years it would be impossible for me to manage Arsenal. In football I know it is so difficult to keep your values and to be loyal – with your heart and emotion. But for me before being a manager, before being a player, being loyal is more important. I am an Espanyol fan. I love Espanyol. It’s like Tottenham for me now. It will be impossible, one day, to move to Arsenal. It will be impossible.”

Pochettino offered a fitness update on Danny Rose, who has not played since the draw at Sunderland on 31 January because of a knee problem. It sounded as though the left-back had suffered a setback because he has been sent to see a specialist. Pochettino said Rose was behind Harry Kane in his rehabilitation and Kane, who is out with an ankle injury, is expected to return towards the end of April. Kane started to do some running work this week. “Rose will see the specialist and then we will see,” Pochettino said. “He is a little bit further behind Harry Kane but we are positive, too.”

Pochettino also discussed Eric Dier’s role in the team in the wake of reports linking him to Manchester United. It is no great secret that Dier would prefer to play in defensive midfield, rather than in defence, where Pochettino has used him for most of this season. The Tottenham manager converted Dier into a defensive midfielder, and he watched him excel.

Pochettino sought to explain how Dier’s role when Tottenham had the ball was not too different this season from last and there was also the undercurrent that Dier should remember how he had helped him to reach the top level.

“We signed him [from Sporting Lisbon] as a player with potential,” Pochettino said. “We provide him with all the tools to be a Premier League player, playing well. In his first season he played like a full-back and like a centre-back but never as a midfielder. In the summer we were looking for a midfielder and we had plenty of options but I decided to play him in midfield. I created a system that he felt comfortable in.

“He played like a midfielder without the ball but, with the ball, he was a third centre-back. You can see in possession, he dropped in between the centre-backs or between the full-back and the centre-back and, always, we play with three [at the back]. People say now Chelsea have changed the system. No. We always played the three in possession. Out of possession, Eric moved in front and he tried to press and play like a midfielder.

“We signed [Victor] Wanyama last summer and we played both him and Eric in midfield but we had some injuries to Toby [Alderweireld] and Jan [Vertonghen], and Eric was the perfect player to play as a centre-back. You can see how good Victor’s performance have been. It is a good thing for the player [Dier] – the possibility to play in different positions.”