Tottenham should be wary of being burned by the allure of an old flame

F ill the bowl of lemons. Dust off the old purple tracksuit. Someone drive down to Big Yellow and get Danny Rose out of storage. Lay palm leaves across Hotspur Way, let the bells ring out across Enfield, make a small summer transfer budget available and prepare for the return of the chosen.

Perhaps it really will be that simple. The great travel writer Bill Bryson once observed that there were three things you can’t do in life. You can’t beat the phone company. You can’t get a waiter to see you until he’s ready to see you. And you can’t go home again. For the past few months – and very possibly the next few as well – Tottenham fans have been vocally challenging the wisdom of number three.

You could hear it in the concourses of Molineux as they slunk out after another dispiriting away defeat. “He’s magic, you know, Mauricio Pochettino,” they sang: an aspirin of the past to soothe the migraines of the present. For a few stirring minutes on the outskirts of Wolverhampton Spurs fans were no longer troubled by their gummed-up 3-4-3 or their curious inability to win second balls in their own penalty area. They were dreaming again.

And, on the face of it, has a prospective appointment ever felt more intrinsically right? Pochettino has been out of work since being sacked by Paris Saint‑Germain last summer and still has a house in north London. Spurs are drifting away on a tide of apathy, inertia and hopeful punts up the touchline. Antonio Conte has become so disillusioned with the job that even his gall bladder is telling him to get out of there. There will almost certainly be a vacancy in the summer and an acute shortage of suitable candidates. Chairman Daniel Levy wants to build bridges with the fanbase. Everything here