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Mauricio Pochettino admits he will shed a tear on Sunday but insists Tottenham will make Wembley home

No team has won at the Lane this season with only Manchester United left to visit this weekend

Jon West
Saturday 13 May 2017 00:01 BST
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Tottenham have a poor record at Wembley
Tottenham have a poor record at Wembley (Getty)

Mauricio Pochettino admits he may well shed a tear or two as Tottenham bid an emotional farewell to White Hart Lane on Sunday.

The visit of Manchester United marks the end of an 118-year stay at the north London club's traditional home, which will be replaced by a 61,559-seat stadium adjacent to the old one.

In the meantime Spurs will make Wembley their temporary residence in the hope that a change of venue will not unravel much of the progress already made under the Argentinian, who arrived from Southampton in May 2014 to succeed Tim Sherwood.

That nagging fear will not be the over-riding emotion on Sunday however.

"Because I am very sensitive person and so emotional it will be difficult not to cry," Pochettino said. "For the fans it means a lot but in the same way - I don't want to be wrong - but I think our fans are so excited to welcome the new stadium too.

"That doesn't mean they are happy it is the end of White Hart Lane, but that they are excited about the progress, for the future of the club."

Tottenham have already been using Wembley for Champions League fixtures, and have so far failed miserably to replicate their league form at the national stadium.

No team has yet won at White Hart Lane this season and Pochettino was confident his squad would finally translate that to Wembley.

"When I arrived here, one of the mistakes I made was that I said that the size of White Hart Lane doesn’t help us in the way we want to play," he said. "I received a lot of criticism for that. How it has changed! Three years later, now it’s ‘maybe Wembley is so big'.

An artist's impression of Tottenham's new stadium

"We will make Wembley our home and start to feel very comfortable there. It’s about adaptation. When you are focused and you feel that your home is White Hart Lane, it’s so difficult to change. That week we play White Hart Lane, the next week we play at Wembley.

"But next season, there’s no excuse. Next season it’s Wembley or Wembley. I’m sure that from day one next season it will completely different."

Indeed, this will not be the first time Pochettino has been at a club that has upped sticks, although Espanyol, the Spanish outfit where he was first a player and then manager, did so to relieve crippling debts, and Barcelona's 'other' team went on to win the Copa del Rey in 2000 and 2006.

Pochettino, who has yet to win any silverware in England, proved he was not so emotional when it came to memorabilia.

"What did I take from Espanyol's stadium? Nothing, nothing at all," he said. "Only the memories and pictures."

Soon that will be the case at White Hart Lane too; demolition work, although not yet involving any wrecking balls, begins on Monday.

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