Mauricio Pochettino was unveiled prior to the start of the 2014-15 season, despite being confirmed as Tim Sherwood’s successor at the end of the previous campaign. The headline many took from his first words as Spurs boss is that they were spoken n English – the Argentine used a translator during his reign at Southampton.

Here we look back at what he said and, four years on, how those words stand the test of time…

1. Aims as Tottenham manager

“At the moment, there are a lot of targets. To develop a balanced squad, to put our philosophy into practice and, on top of all that, we need the results to keep the belief high. “I don’t demand time. My job is only to work hard every day, to build and improve every player in the squad. Always in football, the result manages your career and the decisions because we need to win. “This is our job, not only to provide your philosophy to the team and your style. You need to win, this is the first objective.”

Pochettino could have been forgiven for not pleading for patience from the then-notoriously trigger-happy Daniel Levy. In the decade prior to his arrival, Spurs had been managed by six different permanent managers. In order to be able to stamp his mark on his new team, Pochettino was going to have to win quickly.

His first season represented an improvement on the previous year, when Sherwood’s side had finished in sixth place, seven points clear of a Manchester United side who had just endured their first year without Sir Alex Ferguson at the helm.

Pochettino guided Spurs to fifth in his first year in charge before improving in each of the following two years to third and second respectively. A Champions League run to the last 16 while finishing third in the Premier League also represented progress for a Spurs side playing at Wembley last term while White Hart Lane was being redeveloped.

2. Style

“For me, it is about exciting football, pressing high, playing with flair – this is our philosophy that we want to get down. “The players don’t have to be afraid. Our style is demanding – sometimes too much but we use common sense. We demand a lot from them because that is our style. “Our philosophy is “suffer in training so you don’t suffer in the game”. But the players don’t have to be afraid because we work with common sense all the time. “At Southampton, the players felt my style the first day. The first day, you need to transmit your philosophy. After we need to improve because in football you need to improve every day but you need to put your philosophy across and you need them to understand how to improve every day. This is important. It’s not like I just tell you and you receive my message. You need to build a philosophy.”

Indeed, as Pep Guardiola discovered, it takes time to imprint your mark on a team when the approach represents a huge change from that of the previous regime. Transmitting a philosophy is one thing; understanding it and performing to it is entirely another.

Despite signs of improvement in the first weeks of his reign, Pochettino was in danger of being sacked barely three months into his first season. Had Harry Kane not scored a deflected last-minute winner at Aston Villa in November – the 10th Premier League game of the season – the boss believes Levy would have swung his axe.

“That goal allowed us to carry on working and try to change the club,” Pochettino later reflected. Around two months later, on New Year’s Day, came the 5-3 home win over Chelsea when Pochettino’s men became only the second team to put five goals past any side managed by Jose Mourinho.

3. Transfers

Much of the focus was still on how Tottenham had spent big the previous summer before Pochettino arrived:

“My challenge is not only Erik Lamela. He is still young and the Premier League is the most difficult league to play, the style, the language, and to adapt. “But now, after one year in Tottenham, we think and we believe that Erik is ready to show his quality.”

Pochettino arrived a year after Tottenham had blown the Bale money. Twelve months previously, Andre Villas-Boas and Spurs spent £109million on Paulinho, Nacer Chadli, Roberto Soldado, Etienne Capoue, Vlad Chiriches, Erik Lamela and Christian Eriksen, with only Eriksen suggesting he would be a hit. Lamela was being used as the poster boy for Spurs’ wastefulness with the £30million paid for the winger representing the third time that summer Levy had broken Spurs’ transfer record.

So the primary task for Pochettino was to improve what he had, rather than dive into the market. In his first summer, the new manager was given a fifth of the amount Villas-Boas spent a year previously. The signings of Ben Davies, Michel Vorm, Eric Dier, DeAndre Yedlin, Federico Fazio and Benjamin Stambouli suggested Spurs still had a thing or two to learn about recruitment.

Still, Levy was confident that Pochettino was the manager to navigate Tottenham through the market: “We have a man who knows the right balance between experience and youth – in the new world of financial fair play, that’s very important.”

While overseeing Spurs’ rise to the Premier League’s top table, Pochettino has a net spend of just £50million in four years – less than Stoke, West Brom, West Ham and Crystal Palace in the same timeframe. Magic.

4. Infrastructure

“We have unbelievable players and this is important to achieve something. The club wants to achieve something, the club is ambitious, great facilities. “I think it’s the best in the world, the training ground, yes it’s true. We have great supporters, great fans, not only in London but around the world. It’s all the elements for big success.”

Levy has refused to splurge on transfers but the Spurs chief has made huge investments in the training ground and, of course, the redevelopment of White Hart Lane.

New recruits might get higher salaries elsewhere but, in comparison to almost any other club in the game, the players want for nothing else. Not only do they move into their new stadium in the coming weeks, but Spurs will also take residence at their new players’ lodge ahead of the new season.

Arsenal had to suffer while their stadium was being paid off; Pochettino is aiming to Spurs don’t suffer the same fate.

Ian Watson