Mauricio Pochettino may be losing faith in Hugo Lloris

Tottenham aren’t close to making a change at goalkeeper, but Mauricio Pochettino’s latest comments shows he’s losing faith in Hugo Lloris.

Mauricio Pochettino never wavered in his support of Tottenham captain Hugo Lloris after he was charged with drink driving. His support may be starting to wane now after the keeper’s nightmare beginning to the Barcelona match.

For those who didn’t watch the explosive fixture, Barcelona scored in the 2nd minute after Lloris inexplicably came forward to play a ball he had no chance of reaching. Instead of clearing the danger, he left an open net that Philippe Coutinho took advantage of with an utterly ordinary finish.

The mistake clearly put Spurs behind the eight ball just as the match kicked off. That fact isn’t lost on Pochettino. In the aftermath of Tottenham’s 4-2 defeat to Barcelona he claimed that Lloris’ foolish error “destroyed” his game plan heading into the match.

The Argentine gaffer didn’t mention speak any further about Lloris at that moment, but his displeasure with his keeper was plain for all to see. We could look back at this match as the beginning of the end of Lloris’ time at Spurs.

Remember, this was not the mistake of an inexperienced keeper. Lloris is coming off a World Cup title with France. Instead, this was an error that’s becoming all too common from the French captain. He also gifted Croatia a goal in his country’s 4-2 win in the Final.

That really gives Tottenham two options at this point. It’s entirely possible they’ll continue to trudge on with Lloris and accept the fact that his frequent periods of brilliance will intermittently be shattered by these maddening mistakes. Lloris can’t afford to increase the frequency of these errors if he wants to remain Pochettino’s No. 1 keeper.

It’s also possible that the Spurs coaching staff has seen enough. Pochettino and company could easily conclude that Lloris’ periods of brilliance aren’t worth his nightmare mistakes. If they make that decision, they could choose with a younger, much less expensive option in goal. Paulo Gazzaniga would almost certainly get the first crack at succeeding Lloris. Bringing in another young keeper like Pau Lopez could also be a possibility.

The point here is that Lloris can only afford to make so many catastrophic errors if he wants to retain Pochettino’s trust. He’d be well served by a long spell of competent goalkeeping. It’s clear Pochettino’s patience is starting to wear thin.