Tottenham sacking Mauricio Pochettino a shock, but short-term unrest forced Daniel Levy's hand

James Olley19 November 2019

Tottenham’s decision to sack Mauricio Pochettino is a shock given his overall performance and the club’s appearance in the Champions League Final five months ago, but less so in the context of the mood music that has provided an awkward backdrop to this season.

The ongoing uncertainty over several players’ futures in addition to a series of underwhelming performances that have left Spurs in the bottom half of the Premier League have conspired to leave chairman Daniel Levy with one of the most difficult decisions of his time at the club.

Ultimately, the short-term unrest - and no obvious sign of improvement - has forced Levy into firing a manager who has taken the club to new heights while battling the difficulties of moving to a new stadium which ran over-time and over-budget.

The fact this decision has been announced now, as the international break comes to an end, suggests it was not pre-meditated prior to the domestic hiatus and instead one the product of conversations which have taken place over the past few days.

As ever in these circumstances, the question is who do they get in?

Mauricio Pochettino's managerial career

Soccer Aid 2023
1/21

The next manager will be asked to operate under the same financial constraints - few could have achieved what Pochettino has during his five years in charge and so his successor has a tough act to follow, even if the Argentine’s tenure ends like this.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in