Mauricio Pochettino challenges Daniel Levy to ensure Tottenham challenge for biggest prizes next season

Mauricio Pochettino has once again challenged his chairman Daniel Levy to come up with the resources to ensure that Tottenham Hotspur challenge for the Premier League title and the Champions League next season.

In an interview with Talk Sport radio, the Spurs manager described his club, who play Liverpool in the Champions League final next Saturday, as “the best in the world” but said there needed to be a plan as to how they would approach next season.

In the immediate aftermath of Spurs’ victory over Ajax in the semi-final this month he had again cast doubt over his future at the club by saying there needed to be a new strategy.

Speaking this week he added: “It’s true in the last four years we are consistently in the top four but I think we need more. Our ambition is to win the Premier League one day. If Daniel Levy gives us the continuity and the hope to have the possibility to fight to win the Premier League or the Champions League or be a real contender… it’s a lot to achieve.

“Today Tottenham is for me the best club in the world. When we talk about facilities, this training ground of the stadium which is the best in the world – there is no better club. When it’s London – there is no better city. In England, the Premier League, the most tough and exciting league.”

He added that he was “so motivated to stay at Tottenham” but added the caveat that he needed “to know the ideas” of Levy for the future.

On the status of Harry Kane for the final in Madrid he said he was hopeful the striker would be fit. When Pochettino gave the interview he said that Kane had not yet taken part in full training with the rest of the squad. “We are happy in the way that he has recovered,” Pochettino said.

He predicted the final would be “completely different” to the two league games against Liverpool this season, both of which Spurs lost, the latter at Anfield in March to a last-minute Toby Alderweireld own goal. Pochettino said his side had “deserved much more” in that game.

“The final is about the approach, the mentality and how you prepare,” he adeed.

Finally, he Spurs manager said he was a fan of Game of Thrones, although confessed to being disappointed with the series finale of the television blockbuster.

He also revealed that he keeps a bowl of lemons in his office to absorb “negative energy” and joked that he had to change the lemons more regularly when Levy’s visits become increasingly frequent.