A selection of Tottenham Hotspur players and staff have reportedly urged former manager Mauricio Pochettino to return to the club ahead of Antonio Conte's expected departure.
Following Spurs' Champions League last-16 exit at the hands of AC Milan, Conte's chances of remaining in the hotseat for the 2023-24 season are growing slimmer and slimmer.
The Premier League and Serie A title-winner was hired with the aim of snapping Tottenham's lengthy trophy drought, which stretches back to the 2007-08 EFL Cup campaign.
However, Spurs are now destined to end another season without silverware for the 15th year in a row, and Conte's contract only has a few months left to run.
According to Sky Sports News, there is now a growing belief that Conte will leave the club at the end of the season, and Tottenham players have pleaded with Pochettino to return.
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There has even been the suggestion that Conte could be sacked following FA Cup and Champions League exits within the space of 10 days, but the Spurs board are not thought to be planning to take such drastic action yet.
While employing Pochettino's fast-paced attacking brand of football, Tottenham reached the final of the 2018-19 Champions League, but he was sacked only a few months later due to a downturn in results.
The report claims that some members of the Spurs board still view Pochettino in a positive light, but Daniel Levy would need persuading to re-hire the man he sacked four years ago.
Following his release from Tottenham, Pochettino took the reins at Paris Saint-Germain from Thomas Tuchel in 2021, winning the Ligue 1 title, Trophee des Champions and Coupe de France during his time in the French capital.
However, the trigger-happy PSG board gave Pochettino the boot in his Ligue 1-winning campaign due to the club's Champions League capitulation at the hands of Real Madrid, and he has been out of work since.
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The 51-year-old has been strongly linked with the Chelsea job amid the intense pressure on Graham Potter's shoulders, but the Englishman is in no immediate danger of losing his job after guiding the Blues to the Champions League quarter-finals.
While Chelsea booked their place in the last eight, Spurs laboured to a goalless draw in their second leg against Milan, who advanced 1-0 on aggregate thanks to Brahim Diaz's winner at San Siro.
Conte, whose year has also been hampered by gallbladder surgery and the death of good friend Gianluca Vialli, joked after the game that the Tottenham board may see reason to sack him in the wake of another knockout elimination.
"I'm under contract at Tottenham, then we will decide at the end of the season with the club. My contract expires in June, we will see— they might sack me even before the end of the season, who knows, maybe they are disappointed," Conte told Amazon Prime Video.
Luis Enrique, Roberto De Zerbi, Marco Silva and Thomas Frank are also thought to be of interest to Tottenham, who next host Nottingham Forest in Saturday's Premier League match.
Ben Knapton
