Mauricio Pochettino has opened up about why he feels “really sad” when it comes to the current situation his old club Tottenham Hotspur find themselves in, and why regrets over his exit seven years ago refuse to go away.
The north London club are locked in a battle to avoid relegation from the Premier League, sitting in the bottom three, two points behind 17th-placed West Ham, with only four games remaining.
Pochettino spent five years in the Tottenham hotseat, guiding the club to the Champions League final in 2019 before his exit just a few months later, and is now in charge of the USA national team ahead of the World Cup.
The Argentine was actually heavily linked with a return to Spurs after Thomas Frank’s sacking, only for ties to the US team to prevent him from leaving, and he has reflected on the club’s current struggles, as well as his exit from the club.
The 54-year-old, speaking on the latest episode of the Stick to Football podcast, said: “It’s really sad because I know how the people are suffering there, inside the club and also the fans.
“I really love Tottenham, it’s going to be a part of my life, an important part of my life as a coach, a personal life too.
“It’s difficult to accept, but the moment when we left, what I told to the media and what I told internally was my feeling and my vision. You need to talk during the day that you are there. When you left or when you are sad or when you decide to move again, I think it’s not time to talk.
“If you talk, things for me are not right. But I think when I was there, I tried to explain what was my vision.
“We were in a situation that was amazing because I think the training ground, we finished the training ground, we finished the stadium, we moved to Wembley to play, to Milton Keynes to play many games. At the same time, we were very competitive.
“But this idea of how it can affect the environment and the people outside and the people that make the decision inside… It’s one title, it’s one to win a FA Cup, it’s to win a Carabao Cup.
“It’s a shame. We were winning every season because with all the circumstances that we were fighting, we spent 18 months with no one signing. That was a record in the Premier League.
“We had money to spend but not the type of money to improve, to be close to win or to challenge. We challenged, we challenged to win. But we missed this last step.”
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Pochettino reflects on acrimonious Tottenham exit
Having long been linked with a Tottenham return, something that could still happen further down the line, Pochettino provided more insight on how his tenure at the club transpired, amid clear disagreements with then chairman Daniel Levy.
He added: “It was difficult. Now it’s difficult to talk about that because it was a really, really difficult situation. Because one of the things that I always like is if someone offers me a project, the possibility to coach, I want to know the reality.
“I want to know what they expect from me. I want to know what I need to do, which is the reality of the club. And I think what happened in Tottenham is that I understood what they expected from me, from the beginning.
“Of course it was tough, but I think I cannot complain. Only what I wanted to tell them is to say, ‘OK, that is the idea, that is the strategy, the philosophy of the culture that we were creating there’. But if we wanted to be competitive, we need some time to make different decisions.
“The problem is when the assessment is not coming from inside to the club, and the assessment comes from outside. And when people start to intoxicate things and say, no, you should win with this team.”
Pochettino would actually have been considered for the job this summer, if the club had not panicked in handing Roberto De Zerbi a five-year deal in a desperate last-ditch attempt to avoid the drop.