Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino believes it’ll be difficult for the club to move into their new stadium during the remainder of this season.
Spurs confirmed earlier this week that they will play Arsenal on March 2 at their temporary home of Wembley Stadium, and have reportedly since been told to stay at the national stadium unless they can play at least five league matches in the new ground in 2018/19.
“My gut feeling [is that] it will be tough,” Pochettino said, “But I hope and I wish to be in the new stadium.”
“I don’t want to think too much. My wish is to play at the new stadium before the end of the season. We’ll see what happens.
“We’ll see if you can trust more in my gut or the capacity to finish the stadium before the end of the season.”
The club say remedial works on the safety systems in the new stadium are close to completion.
After that, the final stages of testing the fire detection and alarm system and its integration with the other safety systems take place.
Mauricio Pochettino continued: “Of course the people are going to be disappointed to play at Wembley, not because they don’t like Wembley – we all love Wembley – but because we expect to already be playing in our new stadium.
“That’s why it’s going to be massive to play the last five Premier League games in our new stadium.
“I hope that happens, I believe it can be very positive to move to the new stadium.”
The ‘Tottenham Hotspur Arena’ was initially scheduled to open last September but this has been significantly delayed throughout the season.
Two test events of increasing attendance must be held at the ground for it to be awarded a safety certificate, with no dates for these events provided as yet.