As a statement of intent it would be quite something.
As an admission from chairman Daniel Levy that he got it spectacularly wrong by sacking him instead of backing him, even more so.
Mauricio Pochettino’s return is the only thing that would give Spurs a chance of keeping up with the big boys.
Even if Harry Kane goes, Pochettino’s ability to (re)build a team capable of punching their weight with the biggest clubs in the country would ensure they’d move on.
He’d need, obviously, to get assurances. It won’t work if the Argentine doesn’t get the substantial funds he needs to rebuild the Tottenham defence.
It won’t work if Pochettino doesn’t get the money he needs to develop a pool of strikers instead of relying so heavily on just one.
And it won’t work if Spurs price themselves out of moving the players on this summer that no longer good enough for the squad. Kane wants out because the Spurs squad is stale and has no chance to competing for top honours.
Defender Juan Foyth, who couldn’t even get a game in north London, became the latest in a litany of players who - since moving on - have lifted silverware, with Villareal in the Europa League on Wednesday night, while Kane continues to carry Spurs on his back with his goals.
If Pochettino’s return is to mean anything, he has to have the money to spend to change that. The very fact that Levy is approaching him must mean that the Spurs chairman is ready to have a real go.
Pochettino has shown, first at Southampton, then at Spurs, that he knows how to build from the back. Dejan Lovren and Jose Fonte were part of a formidable back line at St Mary’s with Victor Wanyama and Morgan Schneiderlin front of them. None of them, with the exception of Wanyama, were ever really the same after that side were broken up.
At Spurs, Pochettino had a backline of Kyle Walker, Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen and Danny Rose with Eric Dier and Mousa Dembele in front of them.
Walker would earn himself a move to Manchester City eventually. Spurs would boast the joint-best defence in the country one year and the best outright the next.
The club are crying out for that defensive stability once again. For a side able to provide the platform for the team’s more creative players to express themselves. Pochettino can provide that.
But he has to be backed. As this column has said many times, the results of the past year have utterly vindicated him. The poor domestic run during the Premier League campaign leading up to the Champions League final were precisely because he was relying on a squad running on fumes.
Tottenham need competition for Hugo Lloris. They need to replace three of their four defenders (Sergio Reguilon is the only one who’d command a regular first-team place).
Even if Kane stays they need another striker, maybe two. They need a higher calibre of defensive midfielder and they need to listen to offers for a string of their underachieving stars who have outstayed their welcome.
It will mean Spurs needing to do a quick deal if Pochettino really does want to come back. As an aside, if he really is prepared to walk away from PSG - a club in the Champions League with the likes of Neymar and Kylian Mbappe at his disposal - for a club not even in the top four, it perhaps suggests a lack of backing in the Ligue 1 giants or that his star names may not be staying.
Cynics might think Pochettino, a straight talking, genuine guy, is trying to leverage more transfer cash out of the club where his defence let him down badly in the league and the Champions League over the past season.
We’ll see. They often say you should never go back. If you can get assurances in writing, however, it might not be such a bad thing.
