Mauricio Pochettino is open to a return to Spurs if the north Londoners part company with Antonio Conte.
The 50-year-old Argentine, who led the club to the 2019 Champions League final, is a free agent after leaving Paris St Germain last year. While Conte remains committed to seeing out the remaining six months of his contract, his relationship with the Tottenham hierarchy has soured and the Italian is understood to be unwilling to sign a new deal.
It has left Spurs with a decision to make as to whether to allow the situation to drift until the end of the season or to pay him off and part company now.
Spurs sit fifth in the table, six points off the top four. But they have won just five of their last 14 matches. The club has also kept just one Premier League clean sheet since October with fans disillusioned by the style of play.
With fans upset at the lack of January signings compared to their Champions League rivals, the club is understood to have taken a dim view of Conte’s insistence last week that others above him should be held to account over the team’s poor form.
The club are sympathetic, however, around Conte’s personal situation with the Italian revealing last week that he is still reeling from the deaths of close friends Gian Piero Ventrone, Sinisa Mihajlovic and Gianluca Vialli – with the grief leading him to “an important reflection on my future”.
Pochettino, appointed in 2014, was dismissed in 2019 but remains Tottenham’s most popular manager in the Premier League era. He led the club to the League Cup final in his first full season while two third-placed finishes sandwiched a runners-up spot in the Premier League in 2017. In his final campaign he finished fourth but was unhappy at the lack of investment.
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He still retains a good relationship with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy, however, and Spurs are understood to be considering their options given the uncertainty around Conte’s long-term future.
Pochettino has been open about his desire to return to the Premier League, after being sacked as Paris Saint-Germain boss last year. Speaking in November, he admitted: “I miss the Premier League. Why not (return to manage in England)? We are open. I love England, I love living in London and Barcelona. And of course, if that possibility (to return) appears for sure we will consider taking it.”
And shortly after his departure from Tottenham, he predicted that he would eventually return, telling BT Sport: “Deep in my chest, my soul, my heart – I am sure that we will cross [paths] again.
“From the day that I left the club, my dream is to be back and to try to finish the work that we didn’t finish. We were so close to winning the right trophies, the Premier League and the Champions League.
