A SPOT-KICK OF BOTHER
Having watched his team record their best result of the season against Everton, Mauricio Pochettino must have been thrilled that talk in his post-match press conference was dominated by talk of an unseemly squabble between several of his players over who should take a penalty. And while it might sound like we’re being facetious, nothing could be further from the truth – finally, the wider football world had been provided with incontrovertible evidence of what exactly the Argentinian has to put up with. An elite manager cast into a role more kindergarten cop than Jürgen Klopp, it has long been suspected that Pochettino has had foisted upon him a squad seriously lacking in wisdom and experience. And on Monday night, like two entitled toddlers at a party fighting over the last piece of cake, Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke proved the point when both tried to snatch a spot-kick from each other and their team’s designated penalty-taker. Ultimately neither petulant tantrum-thrower got their way and demonstrating effortless cool of the jazz musician his name suggests he should really be, Cole Palmer got to riff, be-bop and scat on an already perfect hat-trick.
