Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino believes he had to start from zero when he took over at White Hart Lane last May. The Tottenham coach also said Southampton manager Ronald Koeman has benefitted from the club he had left behind, and picked out Eden Hazard, Harry Kane and Bramall Lane when asked to choose a player from the Premier League, one from his own team, and the atmosphere at an English ground.

Speaking on Catalan radio station RAC1, Pochettino was asked about the fortunes of Southampton who he left at the end of last season and Tottenham, who currently trail Koeman’s team in the Premier League.

The Argentine coach said: ‘You have to say that they invested close to 80m euros in the summer and it was already a winning team on the up. When we arrived at Southampton in January of 2013 they had the team that had conceded the most goals in the league.

Mauricio Pochettino (right) says that Ronald Koeman had a ready-made team when he joined Southampton

Pochettino left Southampton for Tottenham after taking them to eighth in the Premier League

'It was a team with a lot of problems, with players like Adam Lallana who wasn’t playing and Luke Shaw who wasn’t playing but in one and a half years we turned it round.

‘We brought a lot of young players through and finished eighth. It is always easier taking over a winning team which is the case this time with Ronald [Koeman]. We came here and had to reinvent things. We always laugh about it because we left a team at Southampton that practically trained itself after a year and a half to come here where we had to recreate everything that we had done at Southampton, pretty much from zero, but it’s a great challenge.’

Spurs face Arsenal and Liverpool in their next two games and Pochettino admitted the Champions League was a huge ask. He said: ‘We are ambitious and we want to be in the Champions League but when you look at the other teams: Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Liverpool, United you realise that it is anything but easy.

'They are powerful clubs and you have United with the monstrous amount of money they spent last summer. We are going to try to compete against them because we are winners and everything is possible in football but the financial reality is that we are a long way from them.’

The Spurs boss (centre) claims that Bramall Lane has the best atmosphere he has experienced in England

He picked out his Spurs forward Harry Kane as being one of the standout performers of this season

Chelsea playmaker Eden Hazard (centre) was another name picking up praise from Spurs boss Pochettino

Pochettino picked out Chelsea’s Hazard as his stand-out player in the Premier League and Harry Kane from his Tottenham side. Asked if he felt he could hang on to the striker he said: ‘He has just signed a new deal and there are no buy-out clauses in England so whatever any club offers they will have to negotiate with the club. The player was born here and came through here and he wants to spend his career playing for this club.’

Asked about the best atmosphere he had experienced in his time in England Pochettino picked Bramall Lane. ‘They are a historic club currently in the third tier and for a Cup game there were 35,000 people in the stadium. So it’s that not Old Trafford, or Stamford Bridge or the Emirates that stands out,’ he told Primer Toc.