Last week, Spurs let it be known that they had ‘ended their interest’ in appointing Julian Nagelsmann as their new manager.
On the very same day, by pure co-incidence, I ended my interest in opening the batting for England in the First Test against Australia at Edgbaston next month.
I also ended my interest in replacing Erling Haaland in the Manchester City starting eleven against Real Madrid on Wednesday. And even though I knew he would take it badly, I told Gareth Southgate I had ended my interest in playing for England at Euro 2024.
There is not much that is funny about Tottenham’s current parlous plight but the mix of face-saving fantasy and haughtiness contained in their dismissal of Nagelsmann’s job prospects at a club lying seventh in the Premier League and heading south fast was bitterly amusing.
The truth is that Spurs should be begging Nagelsmann to be their next manager, not using his name as a public relations device. They should be moving heaven and earth to get the former Bayern Munich boss to north London and drag them from the stinking mire in which they are steeped.
Tottenham have ‘ended their interest’ in appointing ex-Bayern Munich boss Julian Nagelsmann
The team have missed out on Champions League and may not get any European football at all
Spurs are seventh after losing to Aston Villa on Saturday and could yet be overtaken by the Midlands outfit before the end of the season
The mess is piling up so high at Tottenham, you need wings to stay above it. An inventory of their woes is not a short list but somewhere high on it is the fact that their best manager of recent years, Mauricio Pochettino, is on the verge of joining their hated rivals, Chelsea.
Pochettino’s talent, combined with the brilliance of players like Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son, took Spurs close to the title in 2016 and the Champions League final in 2019 but his legacy has been squandered by chairman Daniel Levy. Kane remains but he may leave this summer. If he remains, he will be a shipwreck on a deserted beach.
Levy’s managerial choices post-Pochettino have been a mixture of vanity appointments and staggering misjudgments. Player recruitment has been abysmal. Spurs are sinking. They will not be involved in the Champions League next season. They are one of the big six in name only now.
Levy’s legacy is that the club plays in the best stadium in the Premier League and has one of the best training grounds. That should not be dismissed. But it ends there. He has failed repeatedly and conspicuously to build a team worthy of playing in that stadium. He is further away from that goal now than he has ever been.
His failure to formulate anything resembling a cogent succession plan in the wake of the predictable departure of Antonio Conte earlier this season has cost Spurs a place in the top four. For a man who prides himself on his fiscal husbandry, that lack of foresight and planning will cost the club tens of millions of pounds in lost revenue.
So why would a manager like Nagelsmann, one of the most highly-rated coaches in European football, want to join Spurs? Why would any of the best talents in the game want to go to a club that is a black hole for leading managers?
Yes, Spurs should be trying everything they can to get Nagelsmann. They should be trying everything they can to get Roberto de Zerbi from Brighton. They should be doing everything they can to get Vincent Kompany out of Burnley.
Daniel Levy (left) has made poor decisions during his tenure and they have caught up with him
Mail Sport columnist Oliver Holt (above) thinks Spurs are Premier League also-rans
But why would any of those managers go to Spurs? Why would Nagelsmann, De Zerbi or Kompany risk their careers to go to a club that has become notorious for stymying the progress of managers? Each of them would surely have a raft of better options.
Spurs is a manager’s graveyard. It is a club where the shadow of Levy lingers over all and inhibits all. It is a club that relies on an excuse culture. It is a club that refuses to commit. It is a club that backs away from any vision that does not pay due reverence to the god of the deal. There is always a caveat. There is always a catch. It is a place where managers go to be unhappy.
Spurs have a team now that is barely the right side of ordinary. They are not in the same class as Manchester City or Arsenal. They have been overtaken by Newcastle United. They have fallen behind Manchester United, as they continue their recovery under Erik ten Hag.
Spurs are not as well run as Liverpool, who have stuck by their manager, Jurgen Klopp, during a difficult season and who have returned to an upward trajectory. They have been overtaken by Brighton, too, whose planning puts them to shame. They are level on points with Aston Villa but Villa are a club moving forwards. Spurs are not.
Most people – many Spurs fans included – would also wager that a Chelsea team managed by Pochettino will start to see some return on its lavish player investment next season and climb up the table beyond Tottenham.
Former Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino is set to join the club’s bitter rivals Chelsea
Meanwhile, Spurs are still looking for their next permanent boss after sacking Antonio Conte
That is a long way of saying that, until something radical changes, Spurs’ days among the elite of English football are over. They are also-rans now. Levy’s history of bad decisions has caught up with him.
Spurs have a wonderful stadium that stages significant sporting events. Fewer and fewer of them involve football. Until that changes, Tottenham may discover that, before they can say they have ended their interest in a leading manager, leading managers are lining up to say they have ended their interest in them.
Homely Salford deserve nothing but respect
I was at the Peninsula Stadium on Saturday evening to report on Salford City’s League Two play-off semi-final first leg victory over Stockport County. I’m a stadium nerd and it was my first time at the ground, my 84th of the 92 league clubs, so I was always going to enjoy it.
But I loved the atmosphere at the game, too. There is a tendency in the lower leagues to regard Salford with disdain because the club is seen as a false construct, created by the Class of 92 and Singapore billionaire Peter Lim and turned into big-spending impostors.
Salford City got the best of Stockport County in the first leg of their play-off semi-final
Ryan Giggs (left) and Nicky Butt (right) attended the game to cheer on the club they partly own along with fellow Class of 92 members Gary Neville, Phil Neville and Paul Scholes
Their average home attendance this season was the lowest of all the clubs in the division bar Harrogate Town but they still got nearly 3,000 spectators through the turnstiles for every game at Moor Lane. It’s a respectable number for the fourth tier.
The Class of 92 might not be everybody’s favourites, I get that. But it’s not like the club has been taken over by the blood-soaked regime of Saudi Arabia. Men like Gary and Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes are from the area or close to it. The facilities are good. The fans are treated with respect and affection, the team is doing well.
I looked around the stadium after the final whistle blew and there was joy on a lot of faces. There was a sense of community and local pride. I hope they lose the second leg on Saturday, obviously, because no team should be allowed to stand in the way of Stockport but the idea that they are an affront to football is a kind of snobbery the game cannot afford.
