LONDON -- Mauricio Pochettino has confirmed that Steve Hitchen has joined Tottenham Hotspur in a scouting role but said he is not a direct replacement for outgoing head of recruitment Paul Mitchell.
Last week, sources close to the club told ESPN FC that Hitchen, who worked as a scout at Tottenham between 2005 and 2010, was close to returning to White Hart Lane.
Spurs manager Pochettino revealed that Hitchen had started work on Monday as chief scout, saying it was a "different role" to that of Mitchell, who is currently serving a 16-month notice period.
"Hitchen is true. But we will wait for the club to announce," Pochettino told a news conference on Thursday.
Hitchen was first recruited by Tottenham's former sporting director Damien Comolli and left Spurs to link up with the Frenchman at Liverpool in 2011, helping the Merseyside club to sign Luis Suarez from Ajax.
He has also been credited with pushing Tottenham to sign Luka Modric from Dinamo Zagreb in 2008, and his most recent job was as joint director of recruitment at Derby, but he left the Championship club soon after Nigel Pearson was sacked in October.
In December, Pochettino said Spurs planned to appoint a direct replacement for Mitchell, and a source close to the club told ESPN FC that nothing had changed, although some uncertainty about the situation remains because the club is restructuring its recruitment department.
Tottenham's last full-time chief scout was Ian Broomfield, who worked under manager Harry Redknapp, and had been working for the club part-time in a second stint until his contract was not renewed in December.