Former Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp says the club sacked Mauricio Pochettino because they are “massively underachieving”, but blames the players for the Argentine’s dismissal.

Pochettino’s reign came to an end on Monday night when the club confirmed his departure after more than five years in charge.

The former Southampton manager guided Spurs to their first ever Champions League final last season, but they have won just three of their 12 Premier League games this season, and are already 11 points off the top four in 14th.

“Tottenham not making Champions League this year would be a disaster in Daniel’s eyes, and in Joe Lewis’ eyes,” Redknapp told Sky Sports. “With the money they’ve spent on the stadium and the training ground.

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“I think they’ve got a fantastic squad of players. I keep hearing people talk about them needing a bigger squad – have a look at them. They’ve got four international full-backs, international centre-halves all over the place. In midfield they’ve got England internationals, and up front as well.

“They’re massively underachieving at the moment, so I suppose they’ve looked at it and thought, ‘We ain’t going nowhere, we need to have a change.’”

Redknapp was himself sacked after a rapid decline in Tottenham’s form during the second half of the 2011/12 season, when the club missed out on Champions League football despite finishing fourth, because of Chelsea’s win in the competition.

Despite Pochettino’s success in terms of league position, he, like Redknapp, leaves the club without having won a trophy, and the Englishman says his players have let him down.

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“When people talk about the players there all loving him – if they love him that much, maybe they should have started playing a bit better,” Redknapp said. “Because at the end of the day, they’ve got him the sack, the results have not been good enough.

They’ve not performed well enough, that’s why he’s lost his job. That’s what gets you sacked as a football manager.

“They’ve had one Champions League final, and if you look back at the run, really, everything went their way a little bit. But they’ve not won a trophy in five or six years with an incredible squad of players, full of internationals.”