Mauricio Pochettino

AFTER having two daughters – and, before you start, it would have been the same if they had been sons because I’m woke AF – I swapped Friday evenings in the pub and watched virtually every single romcom ever made with them.

By doing this, I earned up enough Dad credits to go and watch Arsenal the next day. Written down that doesn’t sound very modern man at all, but you can get away with it verbally if you say it to your parenting co-worker in mockney, as it’s not really you saying ‘I’m skivin’ off to the footy’ if it’s shared as a Danny Dyer impression.

Anyway, we watched the lot. Everybody running around after Meg Ryan. Adam Sandler always cast with Drew Barrymore until he was always cast with Jennifer Aniston.

Hugh Grant stuttering. Jude Law pouting. And Colin Firth in an Arsenal shirt more or less playing tortured, complex little ol’ north London me in Fever Pitch. We saw them all, until the kids were old enough to have phones and TikTok, and wanted to chug luminous buzzballs in the park instead.

Nothing in this ride through the romcoms, however, ever uncovered a script as perfectly poised as the ‘will they, won’t they’ romance we can all see (but they can’t) in the average Tottenham fan’s purring relationship with Mauricio Pochettino.

Their film would probably start with a montage of them having great times together, singing songs, dancing around in the Netherlands. Pints of Madri.

But that would just be the first two minutes, then there would be the jump cut of a divorce and staring out of rainy windows – with the remainder of the movie being a near miss-laden journey to see whether one day they would come to their senses and finally reunite in an emotional embrace.

Like the friend who is always mentioning their ex on a weekend away, Poch and Spurs need to scratch the itch after Thomas Frank’s swift downfall. Could the search for Mr Right have been under their noses all along? It might be in theaters soon, folks.

The thing about romcoms is that when A and B finally kiss and the credits roll, you don’t have to see the arguments that the winning couple inevitably would have had in the following years over filling the dishwasher, supermarket car parks, vet bills and YOUR MOTHER.

But in real life, with Poch and Spurs, we’ll all get the chance to watch and learn whether it’s ever right to go back to a lost love. It could be educational.