Tottenham Hotspur legend Ossie Ardiles been speaking to fans at a Spurs supporter event this weekend and revealed exactly why Mauricio Pochettino chose to join Chelsea.
Pochettino enjoyed what is arguably the most successful period in Tottenham’s recent history while he was manager. The club consistently finished in the top four, and reached the Champions League final.
The Argentine was sacked just six months after that disappointing defeat to Liverpool in Madrid, but has retained a great relationship with fans of the North London club since.
Many had hoped Pochettino would return to Spurs after Antonio Conte was relieved of his duties at the end of March. The man himself even admitted he would love to return back to the club one day and deliver silverware to the supporters (BT Sport).
That never happened, and reports at the time suggested Pochettino had not even been contacted about the vacancy at Spurs (talkSPORT).
Instead, Pochettino has now signed on the dotted line and will become the next Chelsea manager this summer (Telegraph).
Naturally, the fact such a beloved figure has joined a fierce rival has frustrated Spurs supporters, and the issue was brought up during ‘An Evening with Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa’, a Yorkshire Spurs event at the Hilton Leeds City Hotel (28/5/23).
One of the attendees of the event took to Twitter to reveal that Ardiles was posed the question of why Pochettino was joining Chelsea rather than returning to Spurs, to which he replied: “Pochettino was waiting for the phone call and he never received it.”
It’s question time and someone just asked why is poch going to chelsea and not back to us.
Ossie replied: “Pochettino was waiting for the phone call and he never received it”.#COYS #THFC pic.twitter.com/umnSrXmpkU
— Alex (@mralexthfc) May 27, 2023
(Photo by Tottenham Hotspur FC/Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images)
Spurs Web Opinion
I loved Poch’s era at Spurs, but I was very much of the opinion that we should not have rehired him as I think we should move on. That said, given where we stand now in our search for a new manager, I am beginning to wonder whether we would have been better off just going for Poch.
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