Tottenham move on from latest total mess
Spurs didn’t even make it into our list of potential interlull saviours.
Not because we didn’t think they’d produce the goods; but because we knew with such certainty that they would.
Sure enough, on Sunday afternoon came the least shocking shock news in interlull history.
In between news of the latest batch of Arsenal players to suffer heartbreaking injury misfortune on their international jaunts – we just hope and pray the club will still be able to fulfil their remaining fixtures on the title run-in – came the news that Spurs and Igor Tudor had mutually consented.
That this announcement was coming has been obvious all week. The loss to Nottingham Forest – and Tudor’s part in it with his inexplicable half-time panic in a game still at that time technically very salvageable – was too much for any manager to survive from the position of weakness in which Tudor already found himself.
He wasn’t the right man when he was appointed, or at any time during his brief and cursed reign. The only things that could possibly be delaying the confirmation of what everyone already knew were Spurs not wanting to appear crass in the wake of the death of Tudor’s father and a desire to name his immediate successor, well, immediately.
We now know it was primarily at least the former. The announcement of the next head coach will arrive in ‘due course’. Alasdair Gold of football.london, who’s generally pretty on top of such matters, places the timeframe for ‘due course’ at the ‘next couple of days’.
The logic there is sound. Spurs want a new man in for when the bulk of the squad return from the blessed escape from the daily horrors of Tottenham that the international break has afforded them.
So now the question is: after the utter f*cking mess of the Igor Tudor appointment, what utter f*cking mess will Spurs brew up next?
There are many options. It’s pretty clear that Spurs’ preferred course of action at this latest juncture of despair was the certainty provided by a permanent appointment of Roberto De Zerbi, a man who does feel quite Spurs and who is, unlike pretty much any other serious contenders for a permanent gig, available right now.
The problem there is that a permanent appointment offers no certainty at all when De Zerbi – because he is quite mad but not that mad – will demand a relegation escape clause even if he did deign to pop over now. There really is no certainty to be found when appointing a manager of a club standing seven games away from what is fast approaching probable rather than possible relegation.
De Zerbi will be interested and interesting if Spurs stay up, but it seems wildly unlikely he’ll turn up now in any capacity.
Which leaves Spurs looking for another short-term option, and we don’t see any particularly convincing one.
They surely can’t repeat the mistake they made with Tudor of going for someone with absolutely no Premier League chops whatsoever, but whatever they do next looks certain to be a huge and desperate punt with absurdly high stakes.
Sean Dyche is the banter answer on everyone’s lips, and there’s no denying the hilarity of it. But you don’t even need to go down the obvious road of whether the fans would stand for it, or whether they’re too arrogant in turning their noses up at him.
Spurs are absolutely sh*t enough and in enough sh*t that Dyche is an option. The question isn’t that, but whether he’s even any longer a decent option as emergency relegation firefighter. He’s just been sacked by Nottingham Forest, who certainly don’t look worse for the change.
Other names being thrown around include all manner of Tottenham Men of varying orders of ridiculousness. Many of them have been using the media as de facto job interviews ever since Thomas Frank was binned. Most have not managed a top-flight game this decade. Others have recently failed in the Championship with West Brom.
Sure, your Sherwoods, your Hoddles, your Hughtons and the Redknapps of this world Know The Club and, theoretically, Know The League. That would appear to be the two main boxes ticked.
But what do they actually know about the club now? What do they actually know about the Premier League now?
Yet even a list of Spurs Men featuring the name Tim Sherwood front and centre is not the most ridiculous possible avenue Spurs may consider.
There has been growing noise around the idea of appointing a player-manager from within the current squad. There are a few small holes in this otherwise foolproof plan.
First, that the players have been conspicuously unable to organise themselves over the last couple of seasons anyway.
The current captain is Cristian Romero. There is solid precedent for Argentinian bosses at Spurs, but we’re not sure this is quite the way to extend that lineage at the current time. Although if he were to get the job, it would surely be boom time for the phrase ‘sent to the stands’.
That’s still not the biggest problem. No, the biggest problem among the very, very many problems with putting a current member of the playing squad in charge is that the most plausible candidate has only just turned 20.
We’re being facetious. But only slightly. Archie Gray would be first among those currently playing, but only second overall from within this season’s squad.
If Spurs do go down this road, it would be Ben Davies wouldn’t it? He is the most/only Spurs man left in the building these days, the last fraying link with the lost era of Pochettino and Kane and Dele and Eriksen and Vertonghen and Alderweireld and Dembele and Son.
That means something given the sheer scale of the current disconnect between the fans and literally everyone else involved with the club from top to bottom, from the vast bulk of the current playing staff to the Arsenal men and nepo-babies in the boardroom.
But it’s still just obviously an entirely ridiculous idea. Throwing Davies into the deep end would likely be another f*cking mess and an end to a decade of tireless service to Spurs that Davies frankly doesn’t deserve.
Yet Spurs are now so entirely That Club that they can make their injured back-up left-back appear a viable managerial candidate.
The key, though, is this. Spurs were obviously right to move on from Tudor, but that is only the first and easier of two necessary steps and there is no obvious good option for the far harder bit. That is the true depth of the absurd mess in which Spurs now find themselves.
They can appoint a seasoned firefighter. They can appoint a club man. They can appoint someone who knows the league. They can appoint someone who knows the squad.
What they can’t do is appoint anyone who doesn’t have a high chance of overseeing another f*cking mess.
