Poyet spurred by reunion dates

There can be few footballers these days who reach the age of 33 without having played against one of their old clubs. Having switched from Chelsea to Tottenham this summer, Gus Poyet is looking forward to doing so for the first time, though not without a tinge of apprehension.

Unlike, say, Sol Campbell and Frank Lampard, who have also moved from one London Premiership club to another, he should have no need to worry. Even the most one-eyed Chelsea follower (not exactly an extinct species) must surely appreciate the elegant midfielder's contribution to the team's success over the past four seasons. Glenn Hoddle, the Spurs (and former Chelsea) manager, certainly did, and was delighted to make Poyet the first of his impressive list of acquisitions this summer, for a modest £1.5m, as the west London club lowered the average age of their squad, and Tottenham raised theirs. And as one Spurs supporter at a pre- season friendly said: "He might be a Chelsea reject, but he's a bloody good one."

When are the matches between them, the Uruguayan was asked last week, and the answer shot out before the question was finished: "16 September, at home, and 23 February." The dates are clearly writ as large in the Poyet family diary as the hectic start to a new footballing life next weekend, with two matches (against Aston Villa, then Everton) in three days. By the time of the first Chelsea fixture, it may still be too soon to judge whether his signing was one of the most astute by any manager since the end of last season; by 23 February, it could well look like it.

Already the 6ft 1in Poyet has slotted comfortably into the centre of Hoddle's 3-5-2 system, frequently stealing forward like a latter-day Martin Peters to tap or head himself on to the goal-sheet. At Chelsea, his final tally was 50 in less than 150 games, a legacy, he believes, of his days as a teenage striker: "At 13 or 14, I was up front, with two wide players outside crossing the ball, so my only job was to be in the right position to score. When I went to Europe, I started to play a little deeper, behind two strikers, so then I had to improve my fitness and defensive work, and had to learn timing and the right moment to go into the box so that I was free."

Before Tottenham, his four clubs were in four different countries. First came River Plate, in his native Montevideo (not the Argentinian team of the same name, as is commonly supposed), then Grenoble in the French second division, and a first culture change: "I was only 20, I didn't speak French and Grenoble was a great city for everything – except football. But it was important to grow up and after that, when I went to Spain, everything was much easier."

Spain meant Zaragoza, for seven seasons, and an upward curve from a first year's struggle against relegation until the 1996 European Cup-winners' Cup winning team (having overcome Chelsea and then Arsenal) were slowly broken up. The following summer seemed a good time to join the exodus, and Chelsea, beginning to spend big with Hoddle gone and Ruud Gullit installed, headed the list of admirers. "It was a difficult decision," Poyet recalled. "It was a new country again, a new language, but I think we made the right choice. Football in England is magnifico. It is a passion from three to five and the rest of the time it is quiet, nice and enjoyable."

He finds that preferable to the undiluted fanaticism of his home country, though he enjoyed hugely winning the Copa America with Uruguay, as hosts, in 1995 and may still have a part to play this autumn in helping them reach the World Cup finals for the first time since 1990. "My dream was always to play at the World Cup. But I don't want to go back to Spain, or to Italy," he said. "After my first year in England, when I had an injury, everything was perfect."

Except, perhaps, for not winning the championship, which had been his prime reason for joining a clearly ambitious club. A crop of cups could not quite make up for that failure, as is evident from his immediate recall of the critical game three seasons ago, "2-2, at home to Leicester" in which the title began to slip away, Chelsea eventually finishing third, four points behind Manchester United.

He declines to blame Gianluca Vialli for a substitution that went badly awry that crazy Sunday afternoon, but is harsher about the constant shuffling of personnel and tactics under Claudio Ranieri: "It was a big problem. It was difficult. You start a game 4-4-2, five minutes later it's 3-5-2, maybe four or five players have to change [positions] straight away. They need three or four minutes [to adapt] and in that time maybe you lose the game."

So it seemed a good time for another transfer, albeit one involving a tortuous trip around the M25 every day to a club that finished 12 points adrift of Chelsea last season and, remarkably, has not beaten them in 25 matches, stretching back to 1990. Ending that run is one of this season's objectives: "I'm very optimistic, it's my character. If everybody thinks we can be in the top six and tries to reach that goal, we can make it. If we just think to improve a little on last season, I don't like that."

And Chelsea? "I think they'll do all right – they have the quality. I just hope they'll be one position behind Tottenham."