The on-again, off-again relationship between Tottenham Hotspur and Mauricio Pochettino can only ever go a few months without being brought back into the public eye. What was once a loving, till-death-do-us-part marriage has turned into a steamy, sweaty affair that no one is benefiting from.
On Thursday, Pochettino caused a stir again by suggesting Chelsea should be punished for 74 breaches of financial rules by awarding their 2016-17 title to Spurs, who finished second that year.
The Blues were fined a total of £20.75m by the FA and Premier League for infringements when Roman Abramovich owned the club. Signings like Eden Hazard, Nemanja Matic, David Luiz and Willian – who was on the verge of joining Spurs, because of course he was – were found to have been aided by the use of secret payments to unregistered agents and other third parties.
Ultimately, Chelsea avoided much harsher sanctions in part due to the club self-reporting these misgivings once BlueCo took over from Abramovich in 2022.
Rival clubs and fans have argued the book should have been thrown at Chelsea, that they were lucky to only have a points deduction suspended and received nothing in the way of retroactive punishment.
“We should win one Premier League, we should have been awarded it,” Pochettino told reporters. “If that [Chelsea’s rule-break] was true, then we deserve to be champions that year, for sure. They were punished; they admitted it? So that’s it. The title should be for the team that was second.
“We can say that they scored goals, they won games. OK. But it’s completely fair to say that we didn’t compete before the start of the season with the same card. Maybe with the same rules, we could have signed some players that would have made the team better or scored more goals.
“I have no doubt and I’m not scared to say the truth. The Chelsea fans will be upset with me. But if we were at Tottenham and broke the rules, I’d admit the same: ‘We don’t deserve the title because we broke the rules’.”
Pochettino has some sort of case, but when you combine this rant with the second-tastiest soundbite from this interview, you see what’s really going on – he and Tottenham still can’t get over one another, even after all these years.
When asked if he would have been ready to manage in the Championship had Spurs been relegated last season, Pochettino replied: “Yes, of course. Tottenham…it’s the only club that always I am open to help. In whatever division.”
Therein lies the problem for both parties. They can’t move on from ‘the good old days’, some of which were over a decade ago now. That 2016-17 title Pochettino is clamouring for is as close to the present day as it was to the Martin Jol era.
Spurs considered going back to their former boss in 2021 and 2023, but ultimately decided against it. The feeling coming out of the club on the second occasion was they wanted to hire the Pochettino of the future, not the one of the past and present. When the Argentine then opted to join Chelsea, in an irony of all ironies, it seemed there was a wincing closure to their relationship.
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But that lingering love story just won’t ever go away. It’s an itch that neither can scratch. Pochettino openly yearns to deliver a title for Tottenham and has not been as adored anywhere else as he was in N17. Spurs keep cycling through managers hoping to rediscover that lightning-in-a-bottle energy he created from 2014 to 2019, failing again and again in increasingly ridiculous ways.
They are, at least, still trying to build lives away from one another. Pochettino has extended his contract with the USMNT until 2030, and Spurs backed Roberto De Zerbi to the tune of over £300m this summer. It makes less sense now more than ever to be so forthcoming with bitterness over what happened in 2017.
The world is a much different place compared to when Pochettino and Tottenham were together. They have to move on. You can’t live in the past if you’re trying to improve your future.