LONDON -- Tottenham Hotspur are breaking the mould when it comes to building a trophy-challenging team, according to head coach Mauricio Pochettino.
Third-place Spurs are above big-spending Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United in the Premier League table, despite Pochettino's preference for promoting academy players over spending on stars.
The North London club did not sign a senior player in the January transfer window, while Andros Townsend departed for Newcastle for £12 million, leaving Pochettino £6.3 million in profit from his four windows at Spurs.
Pochettino has previously said it is not his "philosophy" to buy players but the Argentine has admitted Spurs face a "tough period" ahead while the new stadium is being built, with the same financial restrictions on transfer budget as those endured by Arsenal after their move to the Emirates Stadium in 2006.
With Tottenham still fighting on three fronts, optimism remains high at White Hart Lane, however, and Pochettino is happy to be building a strong squad in a "clever" and unconventional way.
"We grow up in this financial world and my quote is always: 'Football is not an ordinary business.' That is very important. You can spend a lot of money and create a big team and win everything. But sometimes you cannot spend money, and buy cleverly, and by mixing the pieces you can build a big team too," Pochettino told a news conference.
"For me, this is the most important thing -- to be clever and try to discover the best way to get success. That is different in different clubs in different leagues in different countries. It is a lot of the topic of football -- that is not just a little bit true, it is 100 or 1,000 percent true in football."
Pochettino is happy to live and die by his methods, but says everyone connected to the club -- from the chairman to the supporters -- must be in-tune with his "message."
"It is difficult to wrestle with that and then if you get success, you are shown to be right, if not, the people kill you. You are always going to take decisions against the normal way that everybody is thinking," he added.
"You need to believe in the way that you think and the way you want to manage. You need to know what is perfect for you. But if you believe, you can translate that into success.
"If you don't believe and just do what everybody wants you to do, it is difficult because you have no feeling in the way that you work and the way you translate the message.
"Then the players, the chairman and the supporters stop believing in you. If you believe and people can see you believe, that is the moment you start to win the battle."