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According to the Guardian, Tottenham are about to appoint Southampton boss Mauricio Pochettino as their new boss before the end of this week.

The Argentinian has been continuously linked with the Spurs job since the north London club sacked Tim Sherwood earlier this month.

It looks like Pochettino will be the next Spurs manager, with the 42-year-old now 1/10 to be the next Tottenham boss.

Outstanding

When Southampton sacked popular boss Nigel Adkins and replaced him with a unknown quantity a year and a half ago, there were a lot of questions asked of then chairman Nicola Cortese.

The decision to appoint Pochettino was an inspired one though. Saints finished 14th in Pochettino’s first half season in charge and this season and this season Saints finished in eighth. Pochettino turned Saints into a team that nobody wanted to play.

The former-Espanyol boss introduced a high-pressing, possession based style of football which was effective and easy on the eye. He was also not scared of using the young players that the Saints academy seems to produce on a regular basis.

Stars

If reports are to be believed, Pochettino does not believe that the Saints can push on to the next level, as he thinks the club could cash in on their big players this summer. Captain Adam Lallana was is stellar form last season and earned a place in the England squad for this summer’s World Cup.

Lallana’s form has attracted the interest of some of the clubs further up the Premier League table, with Liverpool heavily linked with the £25million-rated midfield star. Lallana’s Saints and England teammate Luke Shaw had been linked with a £30million move to Manchester United.

That move has now been put in doubt by French full-back Patrice Evra renewing his contract at Old Trafford. However, Chelsea has also been linked with a move for Shaw, with veteran full-back Ashley Cole expected to leave Stamford Bridge this summer when his contract expires.

They are not the only Saints players being linked with a summer exit though, as centre-back Dejan Lovren and Morgan Schneiderlin are also both believed to be interesting top four clubs. Pochettino’s exit may just lead to a mass exodus of players from St. Marys as well.

This summer could be a difficult one to be a Southampton fan, as it looks like the club are losing their highly-rated boss and could lose some of their players as well.

Style

Tottenham fans expect their team to play positive attacking football and Pochettino’s style of play could fit in perfectly at Spurs. The players at Tottenham could also fit ideally into the Argentinian’s way of playing football.

Tottenham have a lot of players that are good on the ball. Their squad has certainly been expensively assembled and with the right manager they may be able to start to produce better results.

Promising

Mauricio Pochettino is obviously ambitious and I think it is quite clear that Spurs are better equipped to challenge for the Champions League places next season. Pochettino is one of the most promising up-and-coming bosses in the Premier League.

He has a clear football philosophy and a determination to stick to it. It seems to be a very effective philosophy and if he can transfer that philosophy to a club with the resources of Spurs, then it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Stability

Tottenham now needs a period of stability. It seemed that last season neither Andre Villas-Boas nor Tim Sherwood were the right man to help Tottenham achieve their objectives. If Tottenham are to be successful they need to find some stability.

However, that means the Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy and the clubs hierarchy giving the next boss time to get it right. This does not always happen in the Premier League.

If Pochettino is the next Spurs boss, as expected, then the clubs hierarchy needs to allow the Argentinian the time to instil his ideas into his players, if not then Spurs could be in the same predicament in the near future, no nearer to their objective of making the top-four.

Is Mauricio Pochettino the right man to move Tottenham forward?

The Reds have made an initial bid of £20million for the England international and hope to conclude the transfer before the playmaker jets off for the World Cup in Brazil next month but that is looking highly unlikely as the two sides have yet to agree a fee or even get close. Saints are holding out for at least £25million and are not prepared to lose Lallana for less than that so negotiations between the two clubs, which have been ongoing for a few weeks, have stalled. There is a belief on Merseyside that the 26-year-old is keen to make the move to Anfield and has privately informed Southampton that he wants to join Brendan Rodgers' side, who are in the Champions League next season. Liverpool have lined up Bayern Munich's Xherdan Shaqiri as a possible alternative should they fail to land Lallana, but it is expected that the deal will be sealed at some point in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, the Reds are also interested in defender Dejan Lovren and are prepared to pay up to £15million for the centre-back. Lovren, who scored the winner for Mauricio Pochettino's side at Anfield last season, is being lined up as a replacement for Daniel Agger, who is being tipped to leave this summer.

Southampton manager Mauricio Pochettino believes Jay Rodriguez's match-winning display against Crystal Palace shows he is worthy of a World Cup spot.

Saints had 18 players away on international duty in midweek, including four with Roy Hodgson's England squad for the 1-0 friendly victory against Denmark.

The match saw teenager Luke Shaw make an impressive international debut, while Saints captain Adam Lallana further boosted his chances of going to Brazil with a fine display off the bench, capped by the cross from which Daniel Sturridge scored.

Rickie Lambert and Rodriguez, the other Southampton players involved, were reduced to a watching brief at Wembley, returning to action as Saints won 1-0 at Selhurst Park on Saturday.

The latter netted the decisive goal in what was for large parts a frustrating match, latching onto a weak header by former Saints winger Jason Puncheon and then beating Julian Speroni in a 50-50 challenge to finish into an open goal.

"I thought the goal showed exactly what Jay Rodriguez is made of," Pochettino said of the 37th-minute strike.

"It showed his quality, showed his speed, showed how brave he is, showed his technique. It also shows the fact that he fully deserved the England call-up as well."

Asked if Rodriguez had the talent to play at the World Cup, the former Argentina international said: "I think he has the talent, I think he has the skill to go with the English national side and play for the English national side.

"I think the call-up to the English national side by Roy Hodgson of Jay Rodriguez was deserved, and to actually win your place you need to deserve you place to be going to the tournament.

"To be scoring goals as he did here, he is definitely increasing his chances."

The triumph ended a run of three successive losses in all competitions for Southampton, and Pochettino believes highlighted the club's exciting future.

"I am well pleased with that win," said the 42-year-old, for whom the only negative was an ankle injury to Jack Cork, which is expected to rule the midfielder out for six weeks.

"We're well balanced, doing well, building a project and we want to continue in this way.

"I think we are showing the potential we have for the future at Southampton Football Club and we are very well pleased with the victory."

Palace managed just one shot on target at Selhurst Park, leaving manager Tony Pulis frustrated by his side's toothless display.

"I don't think it was an off-day - I thought we did all right," the Eagles boss said. "I thought we competed very well.

"The disappointing thing was that we never created more chances and more opportunities. That was disappointing.

"But they are a good side, they've got some good players and we've watched them the last three games they've played.

"They played exceptionally at West Ham and got beat 3-1 so they've got some real quality. It was always going to be a tough game and those tough, tight games we need a break and we didn't get one."

One of those breaks looked like it may come when Dejan Lovren brought down Yannick Bolasie when he was through on goal early in the second half.

The Palace fans called for the Croatia international to be sent off, but referee Howard Webb did not deem him the last man so only produced a yellow card.

"I will leave you to decide that," Pulis said when asked for his thoughts on the decision.

"We've just watched the video and the disappointing thing was the first two offsides as both Glenn Murray and Joe Ledley are onside. The linesman has given two offsides and both of them were on, through and past the back four onto goal.

"That was very disappointing and they were in the first quarter of an hour."

Former Southampton striker Matt Le Tissier has backed the use of psychologists in sport, believing they can be of help.

Throughout the last week the use of psychologists has been debated after England manager Roy Hodgson admitted that he may have his squad for the World Cup use them in order to help with penalties.

England's record on penalty shoot-outs at major tournaments is an appalling one, with their only win in the supposed 'lottery' coming in Euro '96 in the quarter-final against Spain.

Aside from that one victory, the Three Lions have exited tournaments on no less than six occasions through the dreaded penalty shoot-out, which first started with a heart-breaking semi-final exit to Germany at the World Cup in 1990.

Despite coming out on top against Spain, England would suffer penalty agony at Euro '96 in the semi-final – again against Germany – before losing two years later in another shoot-out at World Cup 1998 to Argentina in the second round.

Portugal are responsible for each of the next two penalty defeats at Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup and Hodgson saw his first tournament as England manager ended on penalties at Euro 2012 against Italy.

Gary Neville, who is part of the England coaching staff, speculated that the Three Lions' dreadful record is more than just a lack of luck and backed the proposition of using sports psychologists.

When asked on Twitter what he made of the possibility of using psychologists, Le Tissier backed Hodgson's idea as it could help “Some people”.

Southampton assistant boss Jesus Perez has claimed Mauricio Pochettino picked the strongest team possible in this afternoon's 1-0 FA Cup defeat to Sunderland.

Craig Gardner scored the only goal of the game at the Stadium of Light to ensure the visitors fell at the fifth round stage.

Saints' boss Pochettino made six changes for the clash, with regulars Jose Fonte, Jay Rodriguez and Morgan Schneiderlin among those to miss out.

However, Perez has defended the selection. He told BT Sport: "We pick our strongest team where we can. We decided to play with the best 11 after the game at Hull during the week.

"Our team is strong and all the players are available to play. We picked the strongest team.

"There are players that needed a couple of days to recover and some players with illness or just a lack of freshness.

"We are a little bit sad to lose this opportunity to go forward in the FA Cup but nothing to say about our players."