Mauricio Pochettino feels ‘really sad’ as Tottenham battle Premier League relegation | Soccer News

Mauricio Pochettino said he felt “really sad” to see his former club Tottenham mired in a battle against relegation from the Premier League.

Pochettino guided Spurs to a second-place finish 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 now a radically different picture for Spurs, who sit 18th, two points off safety with four league games remaining.

Appear on The Overlap’s Stick to Football podcastPochettino said: “It’s really sad, I really love Tottenham, it’s going to be a part of my life, an important part of my life as a coach, my personal life as well.

“It’s really sad because I know how the people are suffering there, within 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 construction 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 wanted to sign for the club, but instead they both joined Liverpool and were part of the side that beat Spurs 2-0 in the Champions League final.

He added: “We were in a situation that was unbelievable because I thought 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 making 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’ve won every season because with all the circumstances we’ve battled, we’ve spent 18 months without one signing. That was a record in the Premier League.

“We had money to spend, but not the kind of money to improve, to be close to win or to challenge. We challenged, we challenged to win. But we missed this last step.”

‘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 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 head coach in May 2023.

But 12 months later he was sacked after a sixth-place finish – experiencing what was still a regular batch of managers hired and sacked by Chelsea owners BlueCo, who had just sacked Liam Rosenior after just 23 games in charge.

Asked if the club was as chaotic as it seemed, BlueCo’s Pochettino said: “I think they have a plan.

“Maybe it’s completely different than it was in the past 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.”

Can Poch return to England?

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 has indicated he wants 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 – suits the Premier League very well.”

Pochettino went on to describe how he looks when given a new project and why his time at Spurs has come to an end.

He said: “It was difficult. Now it’s difficult to talk about it because it was a very, very difficult situation. Because one of the things I always like is when someone offers me a project, the possibility of coaching, I want to know the reality.

“I want to know what they expect from me. I want to know what I have to do, what is the reality of the club. And I think what happened at Tottenham is that I understood from the beginning what they expected of me.

“Of course it was difficult, but I think I can’t complain. All I wanted to say to them is to say: ‘OK, this is the idea, this is the strategy, the philosophy of the culture we have created there’. But if we want to be competitive, we need time to make different decisions.

“The problem is when the assessment doesn’t come from inside the club, and the assessment comes from outside. And when people start drugging things and saying, no, you have to win with this team.”