By Andrew Warshaw
November 1 – After bringing in Nuno Espirito Santo last summer to replace compatriot Jose Mourinho , promising he would “revert back to our core DNA of playing attacking, entertaining football”, Tottenham Hotspur duly sacked their latest Portuguese manager today, leaving themselves open – not for the first time – to widespread criticism as the search resumes for the right man to take the club forward.
While Mourinho lasted 17 months, his countryman was only in the hot seat for 17 games and must already be wondering whether he was a fool to rush in where others seemingly feared to tread.
If you believe reports at the time he was appointed, the former Wolverhampton Wanderers manager was only handed a two-year year contract because a string of other contenders either turned the job down or were in discussions when the club looked elsewhere. Either way, you could hardly make the current scenario up.
Spurs recorded their best start to a top-flight campaign with three wins but have lost five of their past seven league matches, including Saturday’s 3-0 trouncing by Manchester United, leaving them eighth in the Premier League. It reached a point against United when even Harry Kane was pilloried by a section of the Spurs faithful after yet another lacklustre display,
“I know how much Nuno and his coaching staff wanted to succeed and I regret that we have had to take this decision,” said Tottenham managing director of football back Fabio Paratici, brought in last summer to try and halt the decline that followed the departure of fans’ favourite Mauricio Pochettino.
“Nuno is a true gentleman and will always be welcome here. We should like to thank him and his coaching staff and wish them well for the future,” added Paratici.
Tottenham have scored only nine goals in 10 league games, have the worst goal difference after bottom clubs Norwich City and Newcastle and were booed off on Saturday. The club said a decision on who will succeed Nuno will “follow in due course”.
The fact that Spurs have such a poor scoring record says much about Nuno’s cautious style of play. Despite the club’s pledge of a return to entertaining football Spurs have been joyless, with hardly a single shot on target in their last couple of league games.
The problem now is that after a protracted search for a new manager in the summer following the sacking of the hugely unpopular Jose Mourinho in April, it’s a case of déjà vu with many obvious candidates already under contract.
One who isn’t is Antonio Conte, whose CV is highly impressive and who at one point appeared set for the role in the summer, only for talks to break down. Another possibility is ex-Roma manager Paulo Fonseca whose availability might be revisited.
Nice man wrong manager seems of have been the mantra of Tottenham fans towards Nuno but he deserves considerable sympathy for having to deal with the summer transfer saga of Kane, Tottenham’s talisman who reportedly made it abundantly clear he wanted to leave and who has been woefully out of form ever since.
Champions League finalists as recently in 2019, Tottenham have even struggled in the Europa Conference League – UEFA’s new third-tier competition – and it remains to be seen whether anyone of any calibre or decent track record would be prepared to join a club in such disarray.
The reality is Tottenham are desperately trying to reach the standards and high-tempo style introduced by Pochettino, now at Paris St Germain. Whoever success Nuno will still have to deal with the Kane situation.
The bigger picture is with that soaring debts incurred as a result of investing in their state-of the-art stadium, finding the ideal man at an affordable price is an unenviably difficult task – even for Tottenham’s canny chairman Daniel Levy who simply cannot afford to make yet another managerial blunder following the disastrous Portuguese duo.
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