Tottenham Hotspur has had an incredible six-year run.
The fans have witnessed their club fall from a Champions League final to the bottom half of the Premier League, with their all-time leading goalscorer traded to Bayern Munich.
Daniel Levy has had multiple managers, including José Mourinho, Nuno Espírito Santo, and Antonio Conte, who all failed to meet expectations.
To his credit, Ange Postecoglou was able to revive the entertainment element for a while, but it appears that time is running out for him as well.
In fact, if recent rumours are to be accepted, the Australian might be replaced by the last manager to successfully steer the team in the correct path for an extended period of time: Mauricio Pochettino.
Pochettino’s Potential Return
On November 19th, 2019, just five months after leading the club to their first Champions League final, it was revealed that Pochettino had been fired by Tottenham, who were 14th in the Premier League at the time. Does this sound familiar?
While the North Londoners progressed through the aforementioned list of managers in the years that followed, the Argentine had a break before joining Paris Saint-Germain in January 2021, where he won the League, French Cup, and French Super Cup before being fired in the summer of 2022.
Out of job once more, the former Lilywhites manager took another year away from the spotlight before making the surprise choice to manage Chelsea heading into last season, when, sadly, things did not go as planned, as he resigned by’mutual consent’ after finishing sixth.
It was a considerably shorter turnaround in terms of finding a new job this time, as it was revealed in September that he would be in charge of the United States Men’s National Team until the next World Cup, which would be hosted in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
However, while Pochettino won five of his first eight games in command, his team lost the CONCACAF Nations League semi-final to Panama and the third-place play-off against Canada.
So, with things not going well in his current post and even worse for Postecoglou in London, it’s not unexpected that headlines jumped on him last week when he said, “Yes, I would like to return one day.”
However, while anything is possible in football, it appears to be a remote possibility, as it would apparently necessitate a compensation package of over £21 million, which Levy & Co are unlikely to be willing to pay.
That being said, if the former Spurs manager were to return and be given the reins, we are sure there are some things he would do differently and blunders he would avoid, such as signing Tanguy Ndombele.
Pochettino’s worst Tottenham signing
So, throughout Pochettino’s time at Spurs, he was responsible for several fantastic buys as well as some terrible ones, such Serge Aurier, Clinton N’Jie, and Vincent Janssen, but the worst by far was Ndombele.
The French midfielder joined the club for a then-club-record sum of about £63 million, accompanied by a wave of media attention, to the point where some journalists referred to him as the club’s new Mousa Dembélé.
Unfortunately, the parallels could not have been more inaccurate, as while the former Lyon star demonstrated his talent on occasion, he was frequently uninspiring, if not a drag on the rest of the team.
Overall, the 28-year-old midfielder, whom journalist Paul Brown named “one of the worst signings Spurs have ever made,” appeared in 91 first-team games for the club, scoring ten goals and giving nine assists.
Worse, the Longjumeau-born flop was given a £200k-per-week contract when he first signed, meaning he earned £26 million in pay during his first two and a half years with the club before returning to Lyon on loan for the second half of the 21/22 season.
The following season, he spent the year in Italy with Napoli, but the Lilywhites still had to pay roughly £7.4 million of his salaries, and then another £7.8 million last year to persuade Galatasaray to loan him out.
Fortunately, the club terminated his contract last summer in order to avoid paying any more money for someone who was never going to make it into the first team, but when you add up the money he did make in salaries and his initial fee, the Frenchman cost Tottenham a whopping £104.2 million.
When broken down, that equates to approximately £1.1 million every appearance, £10.4 million per goal, £11.5 million per assist, or £5.4 million per goal involvement, which is the type of money you’d spend for a truly game-changing signing.
Finally, if Pochettino returns to Spurs this year, he might help the team get back on track, albeit he may want to avoid pricey midfielders from the South of France this time.
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