Mauricio Pochettino rightly gets the credit when it comes to Tottenham Hotspur’s progress in recent years, but the manager works as part of a team with several coaches.
One of those is goalkeeper coach Toni Jimenez, who works daily with Hugo Lloris, Paulo Gazzaniga and Michel Vorm.
Not so long ago he was working with Pau Lopez at Spurs and the idea was the footballer’s loan from Espanyol would be made permanent.
Tottenham had a clause to make that happen, for around €7m, but there was disagreement at the end of the loan and claims in Spain that an offer arrived from the Premier League club for less than a third of that.
Talks collapsed and Pau saw the last year of his contract out with Espanyol before moving to Real Betis on a free transfer. He’s now their regular goalkeeper and made his debut for the senior Spanish national team against Bosnia at the weekend.
The 23 year old has been speaking to Diario de Sevilla and the first words he had to say were about Toni Jimenez. The former Spurs player explained: “With Toni I learned a lot. I am sure that the performance I have so far is thanks to him.”
Tottenham will hope this isn’t a missed transfer to regret in years to come.
