• Tottenham manager had been prepared to let Sissoko go in the summer • Spurs manager has been impressed with midfielder this season

Mauricio Pochettino has admitted that Moussa Sissoko is still at Tottenham Hotspur only because of a lack of offers for him over the summer. The France midfielder, who became the club’s record signing the previous summer when he joined from Newcastle United for £30m, had pushed to leave and Tottenham were willing to let him go.

But there were no takers and Pochettino has since been impressed at how Sissoko has shown greater expression in his play and won the trust of his team-mates. The 28-year-old has been the most obvious beneficiary of Mousa Dembélé’s fitness issues and he has started in four of the club’s six Premier League games.

Pochettino has ruled Dembélé out of Saturday’s trip to Huddersfield Town and the manager says that they will “see what happens in the next few weeks” with him. Tottenham insist Dembélé’s injury is to his left ankle, rather than the top of his left foot, which has been the long-standing problem area.

Pochettino has used Sissoko, who has been called up by France for their World Cup qualifiers against Bulgaria and Belarus, on the right of a central midfield three in a new-look 3-5-2 formation in the past two games – the wins over West Ham in the league and Apoel Nicosia in the Champions League – and there have been encouraging signs from him, even if nobody wants to get ahead of themselves with the praise.

Sissoko endured a nightmarish first season at the club and he further blotted his copybook at the end of May when he told L’Equipe that he wanted clarity and honesty from Pochettino regarding whether he remained in his plans. At that point, it felt as though he was manoeuvring to leave.

“The player was the first [to be] interested to move or to leave because he wanted to play more in a season that has the World Cup at the end,” Pochettino said. “But I think maybe that possibility didn’t exist and I was more than happy for him to stay and to give him the possibility to play.

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“He didn’t play too much last season or not as much as he wanted and, always, the player is looking to move, to try to feel better and try to be important, maybe at another club. And, always, the club is sensitive [to the players’ feelings] in every single situation. But, in the end, when we decided to keep him and he decided to stay with us, it’s about moving on and seeing if he deserves to have the possibility to play.”

Sissoko was undermined last year by his lack of a pre-season, having been in limbo as he sought to leave Newcastle; his move to Tottenham only went through on transfer deadline day. He arrived in “poor condition”, according to Pochettino, and his stuttering start to life at the club was not helped by the three-match ban he received for elbowing Bournemouth’s Harry Arter last October. Pochettino also felt that his pricetag weighed heavily.

“It was another thing,” Pochettino said. “When we signed him, it was a record for the club and the expectations from the fans, the press, everyone, is massive. It is never easy to settle from the first moment and then it’s a struggle to play because there is a pressure of the transfer fee and it is so difficult. Even Zidane struggled at Real Madrid when he first moved from Juventus.

“Sometimes, you struggle to understand what the people expect from you and maybe that was a little bit longer [with Sissoko] than another player or what you maybe want or expect. But I think he understands better now what we want from him and he knows his team-mates better. They trust more in him. It is true we are playing in a different way maybe to last season and he feels more comfortable in that situation.

“He has improved his self-belief and that is so important. When you arrive in a new club and you don’t play too much and you struggle to understand why, it is normal that your self-belief starts to go down. It is so difficult to recover from that. But today, we are so happy and he is happy that he is doing well.”