Football
Dan Kilpatrick, Tottenham Correspondent 7y

Leicester given unfair scheduling advantage last season - Pochettino

LONDON -- Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino has suggested that this season's title race is fairer than last year's, claiming the people's favourites Leicester City were given an unfair advantage by fixture scheduling.

Just like last season, Spurs are chasing the runaway league leaders after Saturday's results moved them to within seven points of Chelsea with nine games to play.

Leicester beat Spurs to the title after playing their match before Tottenham six times in seven weeks from mid-March, which included three consecutive Monday night fixtures for Tottenham -- culminating in the infamous 2-2 draw at Chelsea, confirming the Foxes as champions.

By contrast, Spurs and Chelsea both kicked off at 3 p.m. BST on Saturday -- when Spurs beat Burnley and the Blues lost at home to Crystal Palace -- and they both play again on Wednesday evening before each team plays first in two of the following four rounds of fixtures.

Ahead of the game at struggling Swansea, Pochettino said: "It's more fair this season than last season, that is true. We feel it is more fair because we are playing at the same time, maybe one day we play before, then they play before. I think it's more natural.

"That doesn't mean that helped them [Leicester] to win the championship -- I think they deserved it -- but it's true that it was a completely different feel [to this season]."

Chelsea were trailing Palace at half-time on Saturday while it was still goalless at Turf Moor but Pochettino insisted that he was only focussed on his team.

"At half-time we didn't know their result. When we finished the game we checked our phone and said, woah! But at half-time we were focused on us. We didn't know about the score. That is a good signal, it's very good.

"Last season we expended a lot of energy thinking about Leicester, the media, the challenge for the title. Many saw that we spent time thinking about what Arsenal or Chelsea were saying in the media," continued Pochettino.

"Now the team is focussed. We can [win] or we can lose, but we spend time only to be ready and try to give our best in every game. This is completely different today.

"The focus must be on winning games, and forgetting Chelsea and time spent thinking about what they are doing.

"The important thing that is happening now in the changing room is that we're focussing on us and our opponent. Our opponent is not Chelsea. It's Swansea.

"If not, we start to play two games, one against our real opponent and another in another stadium against Chelsea. You cannot play two games at the same time. Sometimes it is important to be focussed only on one thing. It's not about spending time thinking about what's happening in another stadium -- otherwise we start to lose."

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