Tottenham: Mauricio Pochettino concedes he would likely have left Spurs had they won Champions League

Mauricio Pochettino concedes he would likely have quit Tottenham had they beaten Liverpool to win the Champions League.

The Argentinian took over at Spurs in 2014 with their miraculous run to Madrid last season the pinnacle of his time at the club.

Yet Spurs lost 2-0 to the Reds in June, a result which appears to have ensured the club retained their manager.

“It was an amazing period,” he said. “After five years in a difficult project at Tottenham we talk a lot about perception and reality, how we fight and all the energy we expend trying to get Tottenham fighting with the best teams in Europe and England.

“Of course it’s always in your head, you never know. With the way I am, I am always going to prioritise the club over myself.”

Pochettino continued: “Maybe if it was a different result after the final you can think, ‘OK, maybe this is a moment to step out of the club, leave the club and give them the possibility of a really new chapter with a new coaching staff’.

“But after the final I felt this was not great to finish like this. I’m not a person that avoids facing problems or a difficult situation.

“I love a massive challenge, a difficult challenge and of course now to rebuild that mentality to make it possible to repeat a similar season, that is exciting and motivates me a lot.”

Asked if he could have made a different decision had Spurs won the Champions League, Pochettino said: “For sure.

“You know very much when you touch glory you behave differently or you feel different or the players feel different and the challenge becomes different.

“It’s like Kieran (Trippier, who joined Atletico Madrid) explained to me in private and to the media in Madrid – he loved to be at Tottenham and work with us but at 28, 29, sometimes a player needs to discover need things and new challenges.

“That is inside yourself and it’s only you who knows how you feel – it’s not about agreeing or disagreeing, it’s about accepting how you feel.

“You are an individual, you have (an) individual challenge and you have to accept (it) if all the parts are happy.”