Levy, Tottenham Hotspur miss top three managerial targets

The season was already not exactly going great for Tottenham Hotspur two weeks ago when Daniel Levy decided to press the self-destruct button. First came the European Super League then, Levy fired the coach he hired to win a trophy just six days short of playing for that trophy. Now more than 10 days later with a former player in his first managerial role leading the team for the third match, it seems whatever plan Levy had has gone up in smoke.

What is the Plan for Tottenham?

Had Tottenham secured a new manager within 24 hours – as Mourinho was signed to replace Pochettino, things would have seemed like a truly new direction. instead, the firing of Mourinho now seems more like a morsel thrown to the hungry wolves. The wolves being the Tottenham fans writhing over the Super League debacle and already upset over the season.

Given many fans were never going to accept Mourinho – who I somehow now respect more – I guess it was worth a shot. This week after the final. Instead, we go into our first cup final in two seasons with a rookie coach and a depressed star duo. For someone who is in the same building as the team every day, Levy sure seems to be missing the pulse of the team.

Now Tottenham have missed their top three targets

First, there was Julian Nagelsmann who was going to come in and lead Tottenham back to the furious attack of old. Nagelsmann is a very young manager at only 33 but has more coached more than 200 matches in the Bundesliga after cutting his teeth with the Hoffenheim U19 team, which he managed more than 70 times.

Frankly, Nagelsmann was on the kind of progression that Mason, just 29, would like to be on and probably would have been if given the chance to coach the Tottenham youth. Instead, Mason is the interim manager, and Nagelsmann and his promising approach seem headed to Bayern Munich to replace the “retiring” Hansi Flink.

After missing out on the manager Mourinho was seemingly fired for in Nagelsmann the rumor mill drifted to Brendan Rodgers. Unlike both Mason and Nagelsmann, Rodgers has a ton of experience. Having coached in both the Scottish and English Premierships, and currently leading Leicester City, Rodgers has a solid pedigree having won a double-treble with Celtic.

However, reports are that Rodgers’ buy-out from Leicester is more than Tottenham typically spends on players so that is not likely to happen. Further, it is unlikely that Tottenham is really that appealing compared to Leicester City right now, given the Foxes have recently won the league and look destined to make the Champions League next season.

Of course, they could miss out on Champions League, and then Rodgers would come back into play but would we want a manager that bottled the top four two seasons in a row?

Most recently, Tottenham was linked with Erik Ten hag from Ajax. Ten hag has been in Amsterdam since 2017 and should be familiar to Tottenham fans from the Moura miracle. Ten hag has a line to Pep Guardiola as a coach from his time at Bayern Munich and was going to institute a true passing game at Tottenham.

Now it seems Ten hags has agreed to a contract extension and like Nagelsmann and Rodgers before and is no longer really a candidate.

With the top three out of the frame, the race to be the next Tottenham manager is truly wide open. What is not open is the transparency at N17 and Daniel Levy with a real concrete plan for moving the club forward.  So until the next coaching rumor comes and goes, like Levy himself, we will just go along and hope for the best.