Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino admits title race is OVER after West Brom draw

SPURS manager Mauricio Pochettino accepted their title race is over.

Posted Monday, November 27, 2017 by Dailystar.co.uk

Mauricio Pochettino believes Tottenham will be unable catch City at the top of the table

He claims Manchester City's 10-point lead will be hard to overtake.

"It's massive. We have to hope but it will be hard," he said.

Spurs dropped out of the race after dropping another point at their interim Wembley home to relegation-threatened and mangerless WBA, who gave them an almighty shock by taking a fourth-minute lead.

It needed Harry Kane - who else - to sneak a point, which Pochettino says will be vital in the months to come as others jostle for a Champions League place.

City's form and goalscoring has set new standards and Pochettino is ready to throw in the towel and settle among the also-rans. He replied when asked if the title race was over: "Yes, 10 points is too much to catch City in their form."

The Argentinian added: "We feel disappointed.

"We tried different ways to win the game, we are sad to drop two points.

"We deserved to win. We did not conceded one corner, one free-kick. We did enough to win.

"We were massive in most areas but in the last third needed to do more.

"We have a good future and when we return home I think you will see it."

The visitors made a decent case for caretaker boss Gary Megson to take over from sacked Tony Pulis.

Albion ditched Pulis because they thought his football was boring. Nothing has changed. They still defend deep, rely on breaks and the quality of Jake Livermore to open doors.

Spurs had all the play, they did all the fancy stuff, Albion just dug in.

There were good things about Spurs, like Kane's never-say-die attitude and eye for goal. Heung-Min Son is an engine, Harry Winks confirmed he is a talent and Christian Eriksen is class.

Yet they played as a collection, rather than a team, unlike Albion. The green-shirted Baggies rarely left a man alone, racing in to give cover and protection.

Spurs, for all their quality, found it hard to gain space, open doors and often hit passes so wayward you scratched your head and wondered why they have done so well.

Spurs were relentlessly going forward but Albion, brought up on Pulis's mantra of not showing any respect to star names , tackled, defended and rarely allowed Spurs space.

Pulis lost his job because of poor results and failing to entertain. Albion certainly did not entertain yesterday, apart from the occasional sorties. It was fascinating to see which West Brom would turn up post-Pulis and whether the shackles may start to come off after months of drudgery stretching back to the end of last season.

Sadly, nothing changed although many believe the sacking of the Welshman was foolish. This was a team on the precipice with no confidence, focus or direction so the owners taking action when they did makes total sense.

Pulis is, like Sam Allardyce, a fire-fighter, a manager never relegated. West Brom are never going to be overflowing with talent on the pitch but there is enough there currently for the new man - Alan Pardew heads the market - to work with.

Spurs were shabby at times, almost as if it was mission accomplished for them in the Champions League after confirming top spot ahead of Real Madrid.

On their day they are the second best team in the country when firing on all cylinders but Pochettino is still trying to discover how to dig out results on a regular basis, especially when they need to find three points.

Spurs went into the game having lost just one of their last 15 Premier League meetings with West Brom. Yet they were soon given a wake-up call, when Livermore sent Salomon Rondon racing clear to shoot after just four minutes, his shot bouncing into the goal off the far post.

This was West Brom's first visit to Wembley since the 2008 FA Cup semi-final that they lost 1-0 to Portsmouth thanks to a goal from former player Kanu and they stepped up the plate.

History was on their side, having won four away points against Pochettino's Tottenham - only Newcastle (six) and Liverpool (five) have taken more since the Argentine has been in charge.

Rondon almost added a second in the dying minutes of added time. Baggies fans were already celebrating a point long before that.

Acting manager Megson did his hopes of getting the job full-time no harm and said: "We had a dream start and almost a dream finish. We played with a bit more patience and passed the ball.

"Then Spurs started changing and we had to cope. I thought they were the best side I have seen this season when they beat Real Madrid but we kept it going.

"We are where we are and if we can turn in another couple of results like this then we can go from there."