Trouble in the Spurs Camp

Last weekend Spurs travelled to Burnley and lost the match 2-1. The play was relatively calm, and nothing, in particular, seemed to go down. So, it was a little strange, to say the least, to see manager Pochettino have a rather spectacular meltdown, which was aimed squarely in the face of Mike Dean, the fourth official. For whatever reason that as yet no one else has been made privy too, he felt something had happened that left his team at a disadvantage.

At this stage, freetips.com has not been able to establish what was said during that rather heated exchange, but the Football Association has confirmed that they are taking further action and have charged Mauricio Pochettino with two breaches of their rule E3. They have confirmed that they have slapped him with a disciplinary action which means he has until 6 pm on Thursday, Feb 28th to make his response. We understand that they have made the official action based on the fact that “It is alleged the Tottenham manager’s language and/or behaviour at the end of the fixture — both on the pitch and in or around the tunnel area — amounted to improper conduct.”

To say that there is some shock in the Spurs camp is an understatement, the behaviour is very out of character as Pochettino is more known for his calm demeanour. As this point, he will not say what happened but did admit that the line was crossed and he was considering making an apology to Mike Dean. He did make it clear that he would not contest the action, so we assume he will be lodging a guilty type plea. It was quite a serious spat, and it was only ended thanks to Phil Bardsley, a defender for Burnley who made the decision to pull the angry manager away from the situation which will definitely be a black mark against Pochettino.

Watching the game back, or being there at the time, the consensus is nothing really happened that would warrant this type of verbal attack. Early in the match, there was a slightly contentious corner awarded. Off the back of this the opening goal was scored by Chris Wood, but with one more goal to each side during the game, it seems unlikely that he could cite this as the issue as without that goal his team were still not likely to have won.

In the interests of keeping the peace and to give him a break, Mike Dean will now not be the fourth official at the next game on Wednesday night where Spurs meet Chelsea. This role will now be filled by experienced referee Kevin Friend, and Dean will head to the pitch side for the game between Manchester City and West Ham safely out of reach. In the meantime, the FA are going to want answers, and it will be interesting to see what explanation Pochettino offers for his strange behaviour at the weekend.

· Burnley match report

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