Why Mauricio Pochettino would be wise to turn down Real Madrid and stay at Tottenham Hotspur

Florentino Perez is looking intently at Pochettino for when Zinedine Zidane leaves - but should he leave Spurs?

Pochettino has failed to shut down talk about moving to Real Madrid (Getty)

Around the Bernabeu, there is now an increasing expectation that there will be a manager change by the summer - and it is not just down to dismal recent results. Some close to Zinedine Zidane feel he will want a break. Either way, it has naturally led to Real Madrid president Florentino Perez looking at alternatives, and looking more intently at Mauricio Pochettino. He has become by far their first choice.

While Pochettino last week first re-iterated his “massive” commitment to Spurs amid all these reports, he then added an ambiguity by using the Cristiano Ronaldo classic of “you never know in football”. There is something else in all of this, though, that is ambiguous and hard to know. Would it actually be the best choice for the Argentine to go to the Bernabeu, at this point of his career?

The standard thinking applied to anyone as ambitious as Pochettino is that you can’t turn down a job like Real when they come calling, and there is also no doubt that he is similarly “ready” for such a job. That is not the issue. It clearly wouldn’t be a case of Manchester United and David Moyes, who seemed so visibly overawed by the role, and would often ask for advice on what he should say at every press conference. One story has it that the Scot was told to use a specific word about one mildly contentious issue, didn’t like it and said he wouldn’t… only to then use the word over 15 times in front of the media.

Moyes mercifully looks so much more assured now as he does very well with West Ham United, but then Pochettino always looks assured. With the way he speaks at Spurs and in general, it clearly wouldn’t take him long to feel completely comfortable at the Bernabeu, but then time itself is always one big issue at Real.

They are the most famous example of a club where a manager can suddenly lose his job for not winning enough games in too short a period of time. That would be an issue for any manager, but could particularly be one for Pochettino and the intensive and immersive way he works.

He places huge physical and tactical demands on his players, an approach that initially works best with a younger more malleable players rather than a group of established megastars. They can take longer to convince, and it can thereby take longer to see the proper effect of his management at such a club. The danger is just that a club like Real can too easily lose patience in the meantime.

But that also touches on the deeper reason it might not be right for Pochettino to go to the Bernabeu just yet. He has worked long and hard to build Tottenham Hotspur up, and we’ve seen some fine effects including their best league finish in 44 years, but there’s still the feeling they haven’t the best is yet to come. So many of his best players aren’t even close to their prime yet, and Pochettino has himself spoken of the excitement at what is possible as they further develop together.

And this should be the issue. If there was a sense that Pochettino had hit a ceiling at Spurs, one just built into the structure of their club and leading to increasing frustration, you could understand him wanting to leave. He hasn’t yet come close to that, though, and has instead just kept breaking boundaries and barriers and suggesting even more might be possible. It’s not even about the commonly brought-up issue of trophies but the potential for further transcending what Spurs are supposed to be; to really touch proper triumph. That is even before they get to the new stadium, and we all get to the financial effects of that stadium.

There is the danger that Pochettino could be giving that up way before time, having spent so much time on it, and that for a club whose hierarchy don’t inherently offer anywhere near the same consideration to coaches.

Mauricio Pochettino was furious his side failed to beat Newport (Getty)

Were Pochettino to go this summer, say, it isn’t inconceivable that one bad run of results mostly out of his control could then see him out of a job, and all that hard work at Spurs left unfulfilled. He could be left wondering whether there was something much more wondrous possible.

The crux is this: If Pochettino continues his work at Spurs, a job like Real will always be there.

If he leaves Spurs, though, it is highly doubtful he would ever be able to recreate the same feeling; the same potential; the same sense of going somewhere and doing something very different.

It is why, regardless of any offer, he should stay.