‘I do not think there was a culprit’ – Pochettino speaks on Tottenham exit

It has been almost a year since Mauricio Pochettino left Tottenham Hotspur but it is fair to say that a section of the Spurs fan base is still recovering from the way things ended for the Argentine at the club.

That is perhaps a measure of the estimation at which the 48-year-old was held in North London, with many considering him to be the best manager in the club’s recent history despite his failure to win silverware.

Amazon Prime’s behind the scenes documentary on Tottenham’s 2019/20 season only served to reopen old wounds for a few, with some Spurs fans expressing their disappointment with how little focus was given to the way things ended for the Argentine at Spurs.

Pochettino has been linked with some of the top jobs in Europe since leaving North London, including most recently the Barcelona hot seat before the Catalan giants appointed Ronald Koeman (Evening Standard) but he is still without work.

The former Tottenham manager has now opened up on the way things ended for him at the club.

When asked why things soured towards the end, he told the Spanish football magazine 90 Minutes (as quoted by Football.London): “Relationships are broken due to the responsibility of both parties. I do not think there was a culprit. The managers survive by winning games.

“For five and a half years we fought for a clear objective, which was to win and meet certain economic parameters to make the club viable.

“Today they have one of the most beautiful stadiums. I wanted glory, to win a title, but we missed it.”

Spurs Web Opinion

It is a natural human tendency to romanticise the past and I believe a large portion of the Spurs fan base is guilty of that when it comes to Pochettino. While the Argentine will always be appreciated and fondly remembered for what he did at the club, the reality is that it was time for a change after five and a half years. We had been on a downward trend under Poch since the start of 2018.

Watching the Amazon documentary this week reminded me as to how poor we were at the start of last season. While some would argue that the way the documentary portrayed Pochettino was unfair, I thought he did come across very moody at the start of the season. He was saying some bizarre things in press conferences and there were reports that the players had grown tired of his training methods. While only time will tell if Mourinho was the right man to replace him, a change was most certainly needed.

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