Scott Parker having ‘admirers’ at Spurs in the Ange Postecoglou replacement search makes a mockery of their ‘free-flowing, attacking and entertaining’ DNA.
A week on from marvelling at a shortlist which contained four names whose only shared trait was that they were among the few above Spurs in a Premier League table who might feasibly consider inheriting this risible dumpster fire despite the considerable occupational hazard posed to their health and career prospects, we must again revisit those Daniel Levy quotes from 2021.
“We are acutely aware of the need to select someone whose values reflect those of our great club and return to playing football with the style for which we are known – free-flowing, attacking and entertaining – whilst continuing to embrace our desire to see young players flourish from our Academy alongside experienced talent.”
They appointed Nuno Espirito Santo as Jose Mourinho’s replacement six weeks later, then sacked him for Antonio Conte five months after that.
In the same end-of-season letter to Spurs fans written to try and explain why the future of an exasperatingly dogmatic manager had dominated the discourse of a season in which they threatened to end their long trophy drought, Levy admitted that “we lost sight of some key priorities and what’s truly in our DNA”.
Four years later, history has repeated itself but that DNA can be found all over the scene of what has been a criminally poor season. Only three Premier League sides have scored more often than Spurs, whose games have involved the most goals of any team, and they are the only club with two representatives in the top 10 teenagers to have played the most minutes, even if neither Archie Gray nor Lucas Bergvall exactly came through the system in north London.
Ange Postecoglou has delivered on those promises if nothing else. His guarantee of a second-season trophy will at least remain alive into the final month of the season. But a generationally, historically abysmal Premier League campaign cannot be excused.
Spurs are on to beat their worst Premier League finish (15th, currently 16th), lowest Premier League points total (44, currently 37) and highest number of defeats in a season (19, currently 18). After a summer in which they broke their transfer record and spent more than £100m, and from a strong platform Postecoglou himself installed a season before, no manager should expect to survive on those numbers at this level.
Then comes the lurch. It was present as far back as Levy’s first managerial change at Spurs, when he traded in George Graham for Glenn Hoddle. He has since substituted Juande Ramos for Harry Redknapp, then Mauricio Pochettino for Mourinho in moves entirely atypical of how a competent club with clarity of vision and courage in their convictions should operate. But if the ‘admirers’ within Spurs of Scott Parker’s work have any sort of sway to push forward his summer candidacy then this slide might not necessarily stop soon.
Parker is an undeniably talented coach yet the ludicrous artificial inflation of his reputation has been a career hindrance rather than help. A Championship promotion expert who has never avoided relegation in any of his Premier League seasons should not even be able to earwig any conversations at Spurs; at least Tim Sherwood kept Aston Villa up.
And especially after this particular season the idea that Spurs could appoint Parker and rely on how he is ‘well-liked by supporters and also coached within the club’s academy set-up’ is preposterous. Even Levy cannot be foolish enough to think it would go down well, and Parker’s philosophy has undergone a quite noticeable shift this past year.
In no world does the “free-flowing, attacking and entertaining” Spurs DNA tally with scoring fewer goals than 14th-placed Norwich and shattering records for defensive miserliness in the second tier. Burnley have kept 29 clean sheets this season; Spurs have mustered 13 in almost two whole seasons under Postecoglou. Their 29th most recent Premier League clean sheet came in March 2022.
Are the 55 Championship minutes of Enock Agyei enough evidence of Parker’s trust in youth? That is the only playing time afforded to a Burnley academy graduate this season and only two players younger than 22 have been given starts for the Clarets. Luca Koleosho has rarely been seen since being dropped in January and Wilson Odobert joined Spurs last August.
That Parker could make the same move is unfathomable and it even being a point of discussion is absurd. He might one day fulfil his undoubted potential in the dugout but he failed at Club Brugge and his two previous English clubs in Fulham and Bournemouth evolved and improved significantly after he left.
Bayern Munich panicked into appointing Burnley’s manager because their in-built advantages meant they could afford to. If Spurs believe the world’s most effective stepping stone can provide the answer to their problems they are even more lost than first feared.