Mauricio Pochettino is showing a different attitude to the Europa League than he did a year ago as Tottenham prepare to face Fiorentina on Thursday night.
Spurs travel to Florence with the game in the balance at 1-1, just three days before the Capital One Cup final against Chelsea at Wembley.
Pochettino is targeting success in both matches, saying: “We’d be gutted if we go out of the Europa League.
"We're going to go on Thursday to Fiorentina to win that game. If we start thinking like this we're not going anywhere. We have to keep that hunger we have inside us to want to win everything."
That is a little different to his opinion in February 2014 when he was Saints manager when he said: “In my opinion the Europa League is not an attractive competition.
“That is my personal opinion, I’m not talking about anyone else, it’s my personal opinion and as Mauricio Pochettino there is no interest in the Europa League.”
He added: “It’s not a competition that’s attractive to me. I don’t see the appeal of the Europa League.
“I think it’s a competition for teams that are not good enough to be playing with the best.
“I think it is a competition that kills you in the sense that there are a lot of mid-table teams that put a lot of effort into the Europa League and then are not able to do anything in the league, they are not able to compensate for that bad run of form in the league so it brings them down.
“If we are sincere, if we are honest, we want to be playing with the best so the goal has to be the Champions League, not the Europa League.”
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