Mauricio Pochettino insists he would happily make the move to Tottenham‘s new stadium for the final Premier League game of the season – even if the title was on the line.
The Spurs boss revealed on Friday he feels it will now be “tough” for the club to leave Wembley before the end of the campaign after their March 2 derby with Arsenal was the latest match to be confirmed as taking place at the national stadium.
Tottenham were originally due to relocate back to their new 62,000-seater White Hart Lane home for the start of this season.
The move has been put back on numerous occasions and now, with the Gunners game confirmed as being played at Wembley, there are only five home matches left.
Spurs have dealt well with the uncertainty and, sitting just five points off the top of the Premier League, are still in contention to be crowned champions for the first time since 1961.
Sliding into the weekend like...#FridayFeeling pic.twitter.com/iO3P4lKj6c
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) 8 February 2019
While the move to a new ground may worry some, Pochettino has long insisted he wants to relocate as soon as possible and revealed on Friday he would happily take facing Everton, in their last game of the season, at their new home whether the title was to be decided or not.
Asked if he still expected to relocate before the end of the season, the Argentinian said: “My gut feeling (is that) it will be tough but I hope and I wish to be in the new stadium playing.
“I don’t want to think too much. My wish is to play at the new stadium before the end of the season. We’ll see what happens.
“My gut feeling is that it’s going to be tough but my wish, my hope and my dream is to finish this season playing in the new stadium.
“We’ll see if you can trust more in my gut or the capacity to finish the stadium before the end of the season.
“Of course the people are going to be disappointed to play at Wembley, not because they don’t like Wembley – we all love Wembley – but because we expect to already be playing in our new stadium.
“That’s why it’s going to be massive to play the last five Premier League games in our new stadium. I hope that happens, I believe it can be very positive to move to the new stadium.”
It was then put to Pochettino if he would be happy to play Tottenham’s last game of the season as the opener to their new ground if the title was up for grabs.
“I (would) move. I (would) take the risk and move. I am brave, (win or lose the title) but in your own home,” he said.
Pochettino also denied he and assistant coach Jesus Perez had a secret dinner date with David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane during the week.
Pochettino bumped into former Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane in a London restaurant this week.
With Beckham and Zidane both having played for Real Madrid and Pochettino heavily linked with the managerial post at the Bernabeu, there were plenty of raised eyebrows when all were photographed leaving the same London restaurant on Tuesday.
“I was with Jesus and another person, we were three and there was a table, we met by coincidence with (Beckham and Zidane) and that is all there is to it,” Pochettino said when quizzed over the incident.
“We only say hello because we met by coincidence there but then the story appears and how do you stop it? That is reality.
“Jesus said ‘look in the corner, who it is’, then I saw these two people with two people more. We finished, nearly at the same time.
“(Beckham) came to say hello and we spent two minutes talking together and then we split. We went back home.”
