Under Pressure: Mauricio Pochettino must improve Tottenham's Old Trafford record

Earlier in the week, Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino claimed that Spurs were not interested in the Carabao Cup or the FA Cup, but were focused on the real titles. He said that winning the League Cup, ‘will not change the life of Tottenham.’

There are a couple of ways to react to this, neither of them without merit, but both show that now is the time for Pochettino to prove that he is no longer promising as a manager, but able to deliver given his bullish attitude.

One reaction to Pochettino’s statement is to observe that he is not necessarily in the position to pick and choose. Context is clearly vital, but had Brendan Rodgers said something like that during his time at Liverpool, it would have been recorded as yet another Brentish outburst.

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Spurs, let’s remember, have won nothing under Pochettino and last won a trophy under Juande Ramos, almost a decade ago. If Pochettino wants to elect to prioritise the titles he thinks are best, then he needs to actually win one for it to make any difference.

So far, he has rapidly and impressively made Spurs a team that deserves some respect, but that only becomes worthy of note outside the club if they can win the league.

The second is that despite all this, Pochettino is nothing like Rodgers. He has a public sense of humility. His confidence has foundations. He has sustained Spurs’ success over longer than a season and it isn’t all down to just one player, despite the contributions of Harry Kane. The defence, after all, has nothing to do with Kane.

Pochettino has seen what it meant for Ramos’s Spurs career to win the League Cup – nothing. By itself, the title was depressing because it was a highlight, not because it was the springboard it has been for other managers like Jose Mourinho or Alex Ferguson. If Pochettino thinks that he doesn’t need that to get straight to the title, then he has achieved enough so far to be given the chance to prove it.

Pochettino then needs to keep improving Spurs, but now that he thinks that his team are finally serious title contenders then he needs to make a meaningful difference to his side’s performance. The results at Old Trafford need to change, as do the performances.

Against Louis van Gaal, then against Mourinho, tepid 1-0 defeats came. On both occasions, Spurs then finished higher than United in the league and were comfortably better organised, more exciting, more impressive and more committed on the pitch over the course of the season. But it wasn’t enough to stop Spurs being perhaps the last collection of players to be intimidated by United.

Perhaps that is no surprise. It is after all Spurs who warranted a three-word team talk by Ferguson. They are the side who could go 3-0 up and lose 5-3. Even when things went well for them and Pedro Mendes’ shot beat Roy Carroll comfortably, the match officials still wouldn’t award a goal anyway. When Ferguson’s sides were running on fumes post 2010, Spurs were easily beaten, and things are yet to change away to United.

As the last few weeks have shown, United remain vulnerable. The arrival of Mourinho and £290m of new players has not been enough to repair the damage done by Ferguson’s slack management, David Moyes’ timidity and Van Gaal’s inexplicable belligerence.

Against the biggest sides by reputation, Mourinho clearly has little interest in taking anything more than a point. He doesn’t trust his defence enough to attack, despite or perhaps because the best talent in the team is tilted towards the opposite end of the pitch. He is a naturally defensive manager who has had that attitude compounded by a lack of useful options in defence.

If the game against Liverpool demonstrated Mourinho’s lack of ambition in some matches, then the following two against Benfica and Huddersfield showed that the squad’s attitude makes United even less dangerous.

This is Pochettino’s chance. Without Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Eric Bailly, this is a United side that can be bullied. With Phil Jones and Chris Smalling in the middle of defence, this is also a United side that can be expected to make mistakes; they simply can’t concentrate for a whole match. Spurs can win this game, comfortably, if they play to the best of their ability.

Spurs can become Manchester City’s main challengers to the title. They can deal real damage to United’s confidence and momentum. They can shatter the resurgent aura at Old Trafford and around Mourinho, and ensure that Pogba and others come back from injury not to a team ready for reinforcements, but desperate for calming influences. A win would not just damage United, it might give credibility to Pochettino’s confidence in dismissing the importance of the Carabao Cup.

Most importantly, it might take Spurs from being perennial underachievers and bottlers to a team that has vital self-belief. They failed to push Leicester two seasons ago, and they failed in the Champions League last season.

Now they have settled themselves at Wembley after too long and improved after yet another summer of training, this is a chance for Pochettino to prove that he can take Spurs to win something that will satisfy their newly recalibrated ambitions.