Mourinho shares what he told Pochettino’s son

New Spurs boss Jose Mourinho has been extremely respectful and appreciative of the job his predecessor has done in North London.

Since his very first press conference, he has maintained that Pochettino is welcome back at the club any time he wants, and the Portuguese manager reiterated the same in today’s press conference ahead of the Champions League tie against Olympiacos.

While he admitted that he hadn’t spoken to the former Spurs boss, he revealed that he did send messages to him through his son, Maurizio Pochettino, a player in the club’s academy.

The 56-year-old told Football.London, “I didn’t because I know what he is feeling. I have been there and I know that there is a period where the best thing for us sometimes is to process our feelings, to process what happened with us and then in a couple of weeks, two three weeks then we are open to the world. We are open again to embrace the different periods in our lives, so I want to respect that, to give that feeling to him.

“But I spoke with his son, who is a player in our youth categories, and I think through his boy he can understand my feelings too. And of course I will call him but I want to let him process. I also told the players in contact with him to make him feel completely free to come here any time he wants.

“If he wants to come to a training session, great, if he wants to come to a dinner in the Lodge with the boys, perfect. If he wants me to be there, I will be, if he just wants it to be him and the boys, let’s do it that way. I just want him to feel that this house belongs to him.

“Five-and-a-half years in football now is a long, long time so he must feel completely free to do what he wants to do in relation to the players and the staff at the club.”

Drawing on his own experiences, Mourinho suggested that it will taketime for Pochettino to recover from the disappointment of losing his job and that it would be wise to give the Argentine some time to rethink.

When asked if he was waiting for Pochettino to call him first, Mourinho said, “It is not about the first move or the second move. If he wants to come – not tonight because the boys will not be here – but if he wants to come tomorrow, he can come when he wants.

“If he decides not to come, which would be perfectly normal, and he meets the players outside – in his house, or out for dinner – that is also perfectly fine. I will contact him when I feel that he has had that space.

“I needed that little bit of space to process things when I left previous clubs. It does not just five or six days to be open again. You take a little bit of time to process things and understand and to think and rethink. You speak with people and in a couple of weeks he will be fine and I will call him.”

Spurs Web Opinion

Mourinho has been extremely graceful in the way he has handled questions about Pochettino and his work, which is good to see. While it is still early days, there definitely are signs that the 56-year-old is perhaps a little calmer and more collected than his previous stints.

Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Related Topics

Have something to tell us about this article? Let us know