‘I felt empty the day I left Tottenham: I have unfinished business and would love to come back’

Former Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino has admitted he has unfinished business at the football club as he teased a potential return to North London one day.

The Argentine manager, who is now in charge of the United States men’s national team, spent five and a half seasons at Spurs between 2014 and 2019. He competed for two Premier League titles in those years but never won any silverware.

The thought of challenging at the top of the table has been far away from Spurs and Ange Postecoglou this term. Many Tottenham Hotspur fans may be nostalgic for the Pochettino era and, speaking to talkSPORT, the coach admitted that there’s a world he would come back to the club.

Pochettino open to Tottenham Hotspur return

The former Chelsea and Southampton manager reflected on his departure in 2019 and said: "To be honest, the day that I left the club always I was thinking one day to come back.

"It's not that I was thinking before the offer from the USA national team, I was thinking to come back. The day that I left I was thinking I would love to one day come back to Tottenham because like I told in the past, I said for me, I felt empty in the moment that I left. It was like an unfinished job and that is why. It's a feeling, it's a feeling, it's a dream.

"I don't know how you can take or I can explain or describe but I think for sure it's a club that is always going to be special for me. And I would like to one day to have the possibility again to try to arrive in a situation that we are back to finish in a different way."

Pochettino managed Paris Saint-Germain after his time at Spurs before the brief stint at Chelsea, which ended at the end of the 2023/24 campaign despite a strong run of results before the conclusion of the season.

Postecoglou has retained the backing of the Tottenham Hotspur board in a season riddled with injuries. It had been touted that defeat against AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League on Thursday could be fatal to his position at the club.

Ange Postecoglou confronts Spurs pressure

Speaking this week ahead of the Fulham match, Postecoglou said: "Yeah, the scrutiny is more because there's more noise, but that doesn't mean it needs to affect you.

"I've said many, many times that it doesn't concern me because I'm not really sure how people kind of perceive this role and particularly me as a person, that they would think that I would worry about tomorrow if there's a negative outcome. I just don't live my life that way. I don't speak that way. I don't think that way. I love what I do. I get up every day, take on the challenge, see where the possibilities are and keep moving.

"There's a lot of noise. I think there's always kind of two sides to that. One is people kind of do some critical analysis of what I do. Others, just like the story of a manager being under pressure, people get excited by that.

"Some people really enjoy that process for some bizarre reason and the more they try and push individuals, whether it's me or anyone else, to that sort of position, then it generates for them whatever sort of satisfaction they get out of it. But it doesn't infiltrate my world.

"Irrespective of what happened last night (vs AZ Alkmaar), I still would have gone home and asked my kids how the concert went. My life goes on. It's not that overwhelming that I feel the need to block it all out or to react to it. It doesn't bother me.”

In other news, Real Madrid are 'considering' a £54.7m-rated Tottenham star as alternative to an Arsenal player.