Mauricio Pochettino remains open to a Spurs return | OneFootball

Despite how it ended, former Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino is still, relatively unanimously, very popular amongst the Tottenham Hotspur faithful. Over his five and a half years in North London, there were a lot more positives than negatives.

Mauricio Pochettino has kept the door open to returning to the club

Critics are quick to point out that he didn't win anything during his time at the club - but he got a lot closer than anyone has since his departure, whilst playing a much better brand of football. The reputations of the likes of Kyle Walker, Danny Rose, Christian Eriksen, Dele Alli, Harry Kane, Heung-Min Son and others before he joined compared to after, are pretty much night and day.

In a recent interview with Sky Sports, although reluctant to disrespect his current employers or Ange Postecoglou, admitted that he would like to return to the club one day. "For me, for my coaching staff, for my family - that [Spurs] is always going to be a special club. Yes [I still speak to Daniel Levy}. I think we're talking about two different sides - professional and personal.

Now the next thing is to take a professional decision. It's true after nearly six years, after all that time we live together was tough [his departure], because too many ups and downs, emotional things that we lived. But for us we speak [him and Levy] well. One thing was professional, another personal, and now [since] the day after we left Tottenham, we keep always a very good relationship."

Then, the inevitable question of whether or not he sees himself returning one day was asked, to which he responded: "Look, when I left the club, I remember one interview - where I said I would like one day to come back to Tottenham."

He then paused, thinking of the appropriate wording, before continuing: "I am in the USA [managing the national team], I am not going to—no, I'm not going to talk about that, but what I said then, even after six years or five years, I still feel in my heart that, yes, I would like one day to come back. We see the timing, like Daniel said.”

You can tell by that interview that he does not want to disrespect his current employers, nor Ange. The likelihood of him replacing Ange at the end of the season feels unlikely - can't see him giving up a home World Cup next summer. If his relationship with Levy is as good as he is suggesting, the door will be open in the future (beyond this summer) for him to return one day.