With pre-season training underway in less than a week, Tottenham Hotspur are in chaos…
What’s the word?
Those not involved at Euro 2020 or the Copa America will return to Hotspur Way on July 5th to begin preparations for the 2021/22 campaign, but they will do so without a manager as Spurs’ search continues to frustrate.
The Sun believe Graham Potter became the ninth man to reject the North London outfit, whilst it seems that current front-runner Nuno Santo will instead join Turkish giants Fenerbahce as reflected in all-best-betting-sites.com latest odds.
It leaves the Lilywhites in a desperate predicament and surprisingly, they are yet to turn to their current staff to resolve the problem. Last season’s interim head coach Ryan Mason hasn’t even been asked to take pre-season training, which appears to be a strange move as there’s still no manager in place.
According to football.london reporter Alasdair Gold, the 30-year-old former midfielder will be back working with the academy set-up and is yet to be called upon to help the first team again, despite their disastrous search for Jose Mourinho’s successor.
Worrying news
If it’s not going to be Mason, then who? It seems implausible that Daniel Levy and Fabio Paratici have a manager in place before next Monday, unless there are some very under-the-radar discussions going on.
Even then, that seems unlikely considering their every move has been well-documented in the press, so much so that we know the club have suffered blow after blow in their hunt for a new boss.
Julian Nagelsmann, Brendan Rodgers and Erik ten Hag seemed to be the early favourites but they were all swiftly ruled out for one reason or another.
There was serious hope for a change in fortunes with links to former Chelsea title-winner Antonio Conte and over the potential of seeing Mauricio Pochettino sensationally return.
But with neither being lured to N17, attentions quickly turned to ex-Serie A duo Paulo Fonseca and Gennaro Gattuso before talks collapsed with the pair of them, leaving Spurs back at square one, where they have since suffered further setbacks over Potter and Nuno.
Having no manager in place for pre-season training is calamitous as it only puts the North London strugglers even further back in their plans to bounce back from an abysmal campaign, where they recorded their lowest finish in over a decade.
It would, therefore, make a lot of sense to let Mason take the reigns until they find the right candidate, especially as he worked with the team to decent effect at the back end of the last term.
He won four of his seven matches in charge and whilst a permanent position in management is still premature, at the very least, he should take training to ease the absolute mess at the club.
Levy risks continuing this nightmare by not making such a crucial decision. The Spurs faithful should be hugely worried now.
AND in other news, Spurs have been dealt another devastating manager blow…