Mauricio Pochettino has argued that Tottenham ought to be recognised as the 2016-17 Premier League champions, saying Chelsea\u2019s title should be taken away because of rule breaches.<\/p>\n
Before making his case, Pochettino acknowledged the reaction his view could provoke. \u201cThe Chelsea fans will be upset with me because I\u2019m saying this,\u201d Mauricio Pochettino admitted. He then added: \u201cI\u2019ve said that we should win one title, one Premier League,\u201d Pochettino said to reporters. \u201cWe should have been awarded it. If that was true, and that happened, for sure we deserve to be champions for that year. Because we were the second best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tottenham\u2019s campaign that season was one of the strongest in the club\u2019s Premier League history. They lost only four matches, finished on 86 points and ended well clear of Manchester City and Liverpool, who were third and fourth respectively. Harry Kane and Dele Alli were central to that push, with the pair scoring 47 goals between them as Kane collected the Golden Boot.<\/p>\n
Chelsea finished seven points ahead on 93 and won the title in Antonio Conte\u2019s first season in charge, after the Italian switched to a back three following a poor defeat at Arsenal.<\/p>\n
Pochettino said Chelsea\u2019s admitted charges changed the context of the race. \u201cThey were punished, they admitted (it), so that\u2019s it,\u201d Pochettino continued of the charges Chelsea admitted to. \u201cThe title should be for the team that was second. We didn\u2019t compete with the same rules. OK, now we can say that they scored goals, they won games. But it\u2019s completely fair to say that we didn\u2019t compete before the start of the season with the same card.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe with the same rules, if we apply the same things, maybe we could have signed some players that would have made the team better, or scored more goals. It\u2019s not me complaining. It\u2019s the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was also careful to separate the issue from Chelsea\u2019s performance and Conte\u2019s work, calling him a \u201cgreat coach\u201d. But he insisted that punishment matters, warning that if clubs are not properly sanctioned then rule-breaking is encouraged.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we were at Tottenham and broke the rules, I would admit the same and say, \u2018Look, we don\u2019t deserve the title because we broke the rules\u2019.\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible if only some clubs play with offside and another plays with no offside. Or one plays with VAR and another plays with no VAR. No. For everyone, it needs to be the same rules, and the capacity to create the best team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pochettino never won a trophy at Tottenham before his dismissal in November 2019, though he did take the club to the Champions League final. He later managed Chelsea for one season before departing, with the move unpopular among both sets of supporters. He also said Tottenham had contacted him about a possible return in the summer, but nothing happened because of his commitment to the United States men\u2019s national team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pochettino says Tottenham were denied the 2016-17 title after Chelsea admitted to breaking rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,187],"tags":[1836,59],"class_list":["post-19324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}