Mauricio Pochettino names the two crucial transfers he could not get at Tottenham

The Argentine has been speaking about his time at Tottenham Hotspur and how close they came to winning the Premier League title

Mauricio Pochettino has remembered two transfers that Tottenham missed out on that he believes would have pushed them to the next level.

The Argentine managed Spurs for five-and-a-half years with two title challenges, four top four finishes and one Champions League final appearance before being sacked in 2019 by then chairman Daniel Levy six months after that night in Madrid. Pochettino, currently the boss of the USA and preparing for a home World Cup, has been reminiscing about his time in north London and how close they came to silverware.

Spurs infamously went through two transfer windows without signing a single player during that Champions League final season in 2018/19 but Pochettino pointed to a missed double transfer more than two years earlier as being as important to the club missing the steps towards the next level.

"I can tell you that we tried, I think it was in 2016 when we finished the season, we tried to sign two players. After they moved to another club they won the Premier League and beat us in the Champions League final.

"We wanted to sign [Sadio] Mane and [Georginio] Wijnaldum and for different reasons we couldn't achieve that, but sometimes you need this luck and this timing. I remember that we were interested in them but they decided to move to Liverpool and after they both beat us in 2019 [in the Champions League final]," Pochettino said on The Overlap's latest episode of Stick to Football.

"I saw when Jurgen [Klopp] came to play his first game in England against us at the old White Hart Lane. Then when they beat us in the final [in Madrid] it was a completely new team, a new squad, when we had kept the same structure.

"It's a time to arrive in the moment. Coaches are very good coaches. All are well prepared, it's timing, it's about the project. The timing is so important, the circumstances.

"Yes [it was frustrating], but we are all trying to find [the right players]. Exactly [you can't get everyone you want]. That is not to blame the club it's only that we were there to try to improve the squad in this moment but for different reasons we couldn’t achieve that, to bring [them in].

"Maybe there are a thousand different players who could have improved us during this period and to make us better and achieve this and make this step that we missed, but I think it's not a problem, it's part of the business."

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Pochettino said that seeing Spurs in their current state, in big relegation danger and on to their fourth head coach in 10 months, makes him upset and he harked back to what might have been during his tenure in N17.

"It's really sad, I really love Tottenham, it's always going to be a part of my life, an important part of my life as a coach, a personal life too," said the 54-year-old. "It's really sad because I know how the people are suffering there, inside the club and also the fans. It's difficult to accept, but the moment when we left, what I told to the media and what I told internally was my feeling and my vision. You need to talk during the day that you are there.

"When you left or when you are sad or when you decide to move again, I think it's not time to talk. If you talk, things for me are not right.

"But I think when I was there, I tried to explain what was my vision. We were in a situation that was amazing because we finished the training ground, we finished the stadium, we moved to Wembley to play, to Milton Keynes to play many games. At the same time, we were very competitive.

“But this idea of how it can affect the environment and the people outside and the people that make the decision inside... It's one title, it's one to win a FA Cup, it's to win a Carabao Cup.

"It's a shame. We were winning every season because with all the circumstances that we were fighting, we spent 18 months with no one signing. That was a record in the Premier League."

He added: "Tottenham can say 'we had money to spend' but not the type of money to improve, to be close to win or to challenge. We challenged, we challenged to win. But we missed this last step.

"Sometimes it's money and sometimes it's decisions. It's not only about money. We were always talking. Sometimes players that are good don't belong in certain clubs and that is a moment when you can add and add but if you don't remove then it's impossible to improve that player or increase their level. That for me is the key to the whole project in the club.

"Making decisions to not only be right in the players that you add but also when is the moment when the players don't belong any more. It's not good or bad players, it's to remove. Because they were very useful for that period but then it is the next period. That is it, to not have the same line (balance) in these decisions."

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