Mauricio Pochettino has said he feels “really sad” to see his former club Tottenham stuck in a fight against relegation from the Premier League.
Pochettino guided Spurs to second place in the league in 2016-17 and reached the Champions League final in 2019 during a five-year spell in north London.
But it is a radically different picture now for Spurs, who lie 18th, two points from safety with four league games remaining.
Appears on The Overlap’s Stick to Football podcastsaid Pochettino: “It’s really sad, I really love Tottenham, it will be a part of my life, an important part of my life as a coach, also my personal life.
“It’s really sad because I know how people are suffering there, inside the club and also the fans. It’s hard to accept.”
‘We missed the last step at Spurs’
Pochettino’s time at the club coincided with the building of the club’s current stadium and training ground, a period in which they played ‘home games’ at Wembley while transfer funds were limited given the investment elsewhere.
Pochettino named Sadio Mane and Georginio Wijnaldum as two players he had wanted to bring to the club, but instead they both joined Liverpool and were part of the team that beat Spurs 2-0 in the Champions League final.
He added: “We were in a situation that was great 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 a lot of 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 who make the decision inside… It’s one title, it’s one to win an FA Cup, it’s to win a Carabao Cup.
“It’s a shame. We won every season because with all the circumstances we struggled with, we went 18 months without a single signing. It was a record in the Premier League.
“We had money to spend, but not the type of money to improve, be close to win or challenge. We challenged, we challenged to win. But we missed this last step.”
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“Chelsea have a plan… they have to explain it”
Five months after the Champions League final, Pochettino was sacked by then Spurs chairman Daniel Levy after a poor start to the season, replaced by Jose Mourinho.
After a short spell with Paris Saint-Germain, Pochettino returned to the Premier League as Chelsea manager in May 2023.
But 12 months later he was sacked after a sixth-place finish – seeing what remains a regular batch of managers hired and fired by Chelsea owners BlueCo, who have just sacked Liam Rosenior after just 23 games in charge.
Marc Cucurella watches in disbelief at full-time of Chelsea’s defeat at Brighton
Asked if the club was as chaotic as it seems, Pochettino said of BlueCo: “I think they have a plan.
“Maybe it’s completely different than it was previously with (former owner Roman) Abramovich.
“It’s true that it’s not easy for people to understand… I think they need to explain the plan.”
Could Poch return to England?
Mauricio Pochettino is preparing to lead the United States at a home World Cup
Pochettino is now preparing to lead the United States into this summer’s World Cup, which they will co-host with Mexico and Canada, but the 54-year-old indicated he would like to work in the Premier League again in the future.
“One day yes, because I really like England,” he said.
“I think my profile – my human profile and my coaching profile – matches the Premier League very well.”
Pochettino went on to describe what he looks for when presented with a new project and why his time at Spurs came to an end.
He said: “It was difficult. Now it’s difficult to talk about it because it was a really, really difficult situation. Because one of the things I always like is that if someone offers me a project, the opportunity to coach, I want to know the reality.
“I want to know what they expect from me. I want to know what I have to do, which is the reality of the club. And I think what happened at Tottenham is that I understood what they expected from me from the beginning.
“Of course it was tough, but I think I can’t complain. Only what I would tell them is to say: ‘OK, that’s the idea, that’s the strategy, the philosophy behind the culture that we created there’. But if we wanted to be competitive, we need some time to make other decisions.
“The problem is when the assessment doesn’t come from inside the club and the assessment comes from outside. And when people start to intoxicate things and say, no, you have to win with this team.”