Mauricio Pochettino says he feels “really sad” to see his former club Tottenham in contention for relegation from the Premier League.
During his five-year stay in north London, Pochettino led Spurs to second place in the league in 2016-17 and reached the Champions League final in 2019.
However, the situation has changed significantly, with Spurs currently in 18th place, two points behind with four league games remaining.
Speaking on Overlap’s Stick to Football podcast, Pochettino said: “It’s really sad. I really love Tottenham and Tottenham will be an important part of my life, my life as a coach and my personal life as well.”
“It’s really sad because I know how much pain it is inside the club and the fans. It’s hard to accept.”
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“I couldn’t take the final step with Spurs.”
Pochettino’s time at the club coincided with the construction of the club’s current stadium and training ground, and also saw him playing his ‘home’ games at Wembley, with transfer funds limited given investments elsewhere.
Pochettino named Sadio Mane and Georginio Wijnaldum as players he wanted to sign with the club, but both instead joined Liverpool and were part of the side that beat Spurs 2-0 in the Champions League final.
He added: “We were in an amazing situation. The training ground was completed, the stadium was completed, we moved to Wembley and played, we moved to Milton Keynes and played 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 on the outside and the people making decisions internally… It’s one title, it’s one thing to win the FA Cup, it’s one thing to win the Carabao Cup.
“It’s a shame, because we were winning every season and in all the conditions we were fighting against, we went 18 months without signing anyone, which was a Premier League record.”
“We had money to spend, but we didn’t have the money to improve, to come close to winning, to try. We tried, we tried to win. But we missed this last step.”
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“Chelsea have a plan…they need to explain it.”
Five months after the Champions League final, Pochettino was sacked by then Spurs chairman Daniel Levy following a poor start to the season and replaced by Jose Mourinho.
After a short spell at Paris Saint-Germain, Pochettino returned to the Premier League in May 2023 as Chelsea’s head coach.
However, 12 months later, after finishing 6th, he was sacked. Chelsea’s owners, Bruco, have been through a regular turnover of managers, hiring and firing, and just sacked Liam Rosenior after just 23 games.
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Asked if the club was as chaotic as it looked, Pochettino said of Bruco: “I think they have a plan.
“Maybe it’s completely different from the era of (former owner Roman) Abramovich.
“It’s certainly not easy for people to understand…I think we need to explain the plan.”
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Pochettino is currently preparing to lead the United States to this summer’s World Cup, which will be co-hosted with Mexico and Canada, but the 54-year-old has expressed his desire to work in the Premier League again in the future.
“Maybe someday, because I love England,” he said.
“I think my profile – my personal profile and my profile as a coach – suits the Premier League very well.”
Pochettino went on to talk about what he looks for when presented with a new project and why his time at Spurs has come to an end.
He said: “It’s been tough. It’s been a really, really tough situation, so it’s hard to talk about it now, because one of the things I always like is if someone offers me a project, there’s a possibility of coaching, so I want to know the reality.”
“I want to know what they expect from me. I want to know what I have to do. That’s the reality of the club. And I think what happened at Tottenham is that they understood from the beginning what they expected from me.”
“Obviously it’s been tough, but I don’t think I can complain. All I wanted to say to them was, ‘Okay, this is the idea, this is the strategy, this is the philosophy of the culture that we’ve created there.’ But if we want to be competitive, we need time to make different decisions.”
“The problem is that the evaluation is coming from outside the club, not from inside the club. And when people get drunk on things and start saying, no, we should win with this team.”
