Pochettino Pokes Blueco Over Chelsea Rule Breach Remark
Mauricio Pochettino used a sharp line about blueco while reflecting on Tottenham’s title push, saying he had read that Spurs maybe deserved a Premier League title because “some club broke the rules”. The remark landed on the latest episode of Stick to Football and drew laughter from the four hosts around him.
Pochettino and Tottenham
The former Tottenham Hotspur head coach said he still felt the club was the best place for him during his five-and-a-half years in north London. “In the time we were there [at Spurs], for me it was the best club, we were enjoying it there and we felt that we could win. It really hurts me when people say other things about Tottenham. It's not like this. Tottenham have a history, an amazing history and it's not easy to win, to compete,” he said.
He then added the line that sent Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Jill Scott and Ian Wright into laughter: “I think when we were competing there, maybe, maybe, I was reading in some paper that maybe we deserved some Premier League title because some club broke the rules”. Pochettino followed that with, “But it's true! I don't say that! It was in a newspaper.”
Chelsea and the rule breach
The comment pointed back at Chelsea’s later punishment. Last month, the club were fined £10.75million and handed a suspended transfer ban over secret payments made to agents worth £47.5m between 2011 and 2018. The Premier League report named deals for Eden Hazard, Willian, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic among the transfers linked to those payments.
Pochettino, who also later managed Chelsea, did not need to name the club in the joke for the reference to land. The set-up came while he was discussing the two seasons in which Tottenham were close to the title, and the line gave the exchange its edge.
Conte’s Chelsea seasons
Tottenham finished below Antonio Conte’s Chelsea in both the 2015/16 and 2016/17 title races. Pochettino framed that period as one in which Spurs were fighting near the top without quite getting over the line, saying, “This period was really, really tough, which is why for me every season was more than winning a title because we were always fighting up there for the Premier League.”
For Spurs supporters, the exchange lands as a reminder of how those seasons are remembered now: not just by the narrow miss, but by what came out later about Chelsea’s conduct during that wider era. Pochettino left the studio having turned a routine discussion of Tottenham’s near-title run into a pointed line about the club that beat them.
