Manager Mauricio Pochettino has made a decision on Tottenham’s current situation. (Image: Getty)
Mauricio Pochettino has revealed why he feels “really sad” about the current situation at Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs are locked in a battle to avoid relegation from the Premier League, with four games remaining to ensure they remain in the top flight.
Pochettino was in charge of Tottenham for five years, leading the club to the Champions League final in 2019 before stepping down just a few months later. The 54-year-old has since had spells at Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea, and is currently the head coach of the United States men’s national team heading into this summer’s Atlantic World Cup.
Tottenham earned their first Premier League win of 2026 with a narrow 1-0 win over bottom-placed Wolves last weekend, and will return to top-flight action on Sunday when they face top-flight side Aston Villa. Spurs currently sit in 18th place in the table, two points clear of safety.
As Spurs struggle to avoid dropping out of the Championship, Pochettino has opened up about his time at Tottenham and his departure from the club. “It’s really sad. I really love Tottenham. This is going to be a part of my life, an important part of my life as a coach and in my personal life,” Pochettino said on the latest episode of Stick to Football.
“It’s really sad because I know how the people there, inside the club and the fans are suffering. It’s hard to accept, but the moment we left, what I said to the media and what I said internally was my feeling and my vision. You need to talk about being there during the day. When you leave, when you’re sad and when you decide to leave, I don’t think it’s the time to talk. If I did, things wouldn’t be right for me.”
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“But I think when I was there, I tried to explain what my vision was. We were in an amazing situation because I think the training ground was completed, the training ground was completed, the stadium was completed, we moved to Wembley to play, we moved 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 on the outside and the people making the decisions internally… It’s one title, winning the FA Cup and winning the Carabao Cup.
“It’s a shame. We were winning every season, because in all the situations we were in, 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 challenge. We tried, we challenged to win. But we missed this last step.”
Mauricio Pochettino will manage the U.S. national team at this summer’s World Cup (Image: Getty)
Pochettino has long been linked with a return to Spurs and provided insight into what he would look for if given the opportunity to run the club, including how his tenure at Tottenham initially went. “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,” he said.
“I want to know what they expect from me. I want to know what I need 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 is, ‘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 when the evaluation comes from outside the club and not from inside the club. And when people get drunk on things and start saying, no, we have to win with this team.”
