Tottenham FC: Jose Mourinho's potential replacements
3 straight defeats in a row have left questions over Mourinho’s future. While many Tottenham fans could perhaps accept a few poor results, it's not the results that are so concerning but rather the performances. Mourinho’s teams tend to be pragmatic but the last 3 performances have taken that to the next level.
Over the last few days, clips have been circulating on social media of how passive the players were during the game (instructed by Mourinho to do so). Mourinho could perhaps count himself lucky there are no fans there. They would be voicing their discontent and this wouldn’t be ignored by the club. Even if perhaps the fans could ‘spur’ the players on, they are arguably keeping Mourinho in the job by not being there.
That’s a problem for Tottenham and if they do decide to replace Mourinho, which is entirebly conceivable, they need to take time with their next appointment.
Regardless of the manager, the squad isn’t in the best state and it still needs to continue going through its rebuild. Tottenham need a manager for the long term who is willing to participate in that.
Perhaps its better to wait until the summer before employing any manager as many managers are currently in contracts and also trying to help their clubs compete (meaning they won’t want to leave) and therefore its easier just to sort that in the summer.
The new potential manager will need to be able to do a few things :
- Play attractive football. Sometimes you can be pragmatic but in general they need to bring an attractive brand of football to ensure that Tottenham remain entertaining
- Be willing to help in a rebuild.
- Be committed
- Someone who has a good network of contacts enabling us to buy quality players
- Someone willing to work with Daniel Levy and the players
- Ideally they’d have exprience of winning trophies
Given that here are a potential list of candidates
Julian Naglesmann:
Naglesmann is a man wanted by many of the top clubs in the world. He has risen to fame in Germany for the attractive brand of football he plays while also being a great tactician. By the summer he would’ve been at Leipzig for 2 years and perhaps the lure of the Premier League as well as a bigger contract could entice him. The problem Tottenham may have here is that bigger clubs will probably be in for him if they sack their managers and also will Naglesmann really be the man for the long term?
Max Allegri :
Allegri has experience of winning trophies and titles at Juventus. He’s also been able to attract a high calibre of player to the club although its debatable whether that was him or Juventus itself. He would’ve been out of football for 2 years which can be seen as both positive and negative. The issue with Allegri is the playing style. He was known for being quite pragmatic and when we played Juventus in 2017-18, Tottenham played better than them in both games despite Tottenham being a weaker team . I’m not sure if any of the fans can stomach more of the negative football.
Erik Ten Hag:
Ten Haag nearly got Ajax to a champions league final at the expense of us. Ten Haag has been at Ajax for a few seasons now and would perhaps like a new challenge in a bigger league. While Ajax haven’t been as impressive in the last 2 seasons, Ten Hag can still maintain that Ajax play an attractive and effective brand of football. He can also boost winning mutliple domestic trophies, granted the Eredivisie isn’t the biggest achievement but its better than nothing. He’d also likely be in at for the long term at Tottenham and his ability to develop young players would surely be a good asset.
Brendan Rodgers :
It was reported that Daniel Levy wanted Brendan Rodgers at Tottenham in the past. Would he switch Leicester for Tottenham? Perhaps. Tottenham still remain a bigger club and could offer Rodgers a bigger and better contract. Rodgers has shown over his spells at Liverpool and Leicester than he can play attractive football, develop young players and also compete with bigger clubs and get wins against them. However, perhaps he is more ‘spursy’ than we want. He has a history of ‘bottling’ and has struggled to take the last step to get the team to success.
Eddie Howe :
Howe has been out of a job since the end of the 2019-20 season after getting Bournemouth relegated. Howe always tried to play an attractive brand of football at Bournemouth however there are questions over whether he could make the step up to a bigger club. For all those who say Bournemouth were punching above the weight, he spent a lot more money than any of the clubs around the bottom of the table and during his tenure a lot of players bought were unsuccessful and also bought at the wrong price eg. Solanke.