Mauricio: 'We cannot see only the result'

Mauricio Pochettino was relaxed after Saturday’s defeat to Girona as he re-emphasised the point that results are the last thing he looks at during pre-season.

After a tremendous summer tour of the USA in which many of our Academy players took their chances to impress, we played one last game in the heat of the Spanish sun before the start of the competitive campaign with even more burgeoning young talent from our youth ranks given their opportunities by Mauricio.

And although we let slip a lead given to us by Lucas Moura to go down 4-1, Mauricio was keen to add context to the evening and referred back to the message he’s been sending after all our friendly outings over the last few weeks – that he wasn’t paying great heed to the scoreline.

“I am so happy because at the end it’s a lot of positive things,” he said after the game. “We cannot see only the result – there were a lot of conditions to play, it was so hot, we feel jet lagged because 48 hours ago we were in America and that is why for me it’s important to say thank you to all the young players because they were fantastic.

“To have this type of game against a top-level Spanish team is always important for them. At 17, 18, 19 years old, to have the possibility to play with the first team – I think it’s fantastic.

“The last thing is the result – sometimes you need to feel disappointed and sad but we are in a different direction and way than after the games against Roma, Barcelona and AC Milan (in America). In the context that we played today, the game was very useful for us and there are many positive things to take.”