that speculation comes courtesy of our good friend Matt Law<\/a>, writing for the Daily Telegraph. Law writes that while the club decides what it wants to do (sidebar: hnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggg) there are names that are emerging on a potential managerial shortlist. Those names include former Brighton and Marseille manager Roberto De Zerbi, former Spurs and current USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino, and former Tottenham striker and current Ferencvaros head coach Robbie Keane.<\/p>\nNow, before we get into any of the specifics, Law makes it clear that the club doesn\u2019t really know what it wants at the moment, or whether they\u2019d be open to a permanent replacement now, or an interim with a permanent hire after this summer\u2019s World Cup. That makes these three names extremely interesting, but for different reasons.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with De Zerbi, which if you are a correct-thinking Tottenham fan, the idea should be chucked in the bin immediately. De Zerbi recently stepped down from a disastrous stint at Marseille as manager where he managed to both piss everybody off including his players and also somehow both sign and defend Mason Greenwood who was credibly accused of sexual assault while at Manchester United. I will go out on a limb here and say that there are plenty of non-footballing reasons why De Zerbi should be nowhere near a Spurs managerial shortlist, but also the football hasn\u2019t exactly been stellar either. Also, I can\u2019t see him agreeing to come in as an interim so that appointment should be considered a full time hire, and if there\u2019s serious interest here I will be the first person to start an online #NoToDeZerbi campaign. It\u2019s a no for me, Clive. The hardest of passes.<\/p>\n
Pochettino is the fan\u2019s favorite for permanent manager, but considering he\u2019s about to lead the USA to a World Cup on home soil there doesn\u2019t appear to be any chance he\u2019d be willing to break his contract to come save a damaged Spurs from relegation. Spurs very well might end up rolling back the clock and getting the band together under Pochettino, but it won\u2019t be before Spurs take the pitch against Arsenal.<\/p>\n
Robbie Keane is an interesting choice in the Michael Carrick mode. I don\u2019t have any opinions (yet) on Keane\u2019s suitability but he currently has them top of the table in the Hungarian league and led them to a respectable 12th and the playoffs of the Champions League this season. Again, it\u2019s not clear he\u2019d be interested in leaving a pretty good job for an interim position at his old club, or whether Spurs would be prepared to offer him the job permanently if he does a good enough job in what remains of the Premier League season, but he\u2019s also Robbie Keane, so \u00af\\_(\u30c4)_\/\u00af<\/p>\n
The final option would be an internal hire, and Law suggests if Spurs promote an interim from within it\u2019ll be Johnny Heitinga, who Spurs just appointed in the last month to replace Matt Wells, who left for a head coaching position in MLS. Heitinga flamed out at Ajax in what should be a one horse league and there are suggestions he might not be up for a head coaching job in the Premier League, but if the remit is \u201cnot get relegated\u201d then there are probably any number of guys who could do the job and Heitinga is one of them. I\u2019m not necessarily opposed to Johnny Heitinga if the end result is Premier League safety and a firm handshake\/farewell at the end of the season, but it doesn\u2019t exactly scream confidence in the club\u2019s ability to form a succession plan. (Also \u2014 Justin Cochrane exists?)<\/p>\n
Looking to a summer appointment, Law also notes that Fulham manager Marco Silva and Bournemouth\u2019s Andoni Iraola are both out of contract this summer, and there will likely be other managerial possibilities after the World Cup, should Spurs want to lay track with someone ahead of time. Other names mentioned included Martin Jol, Harry Redknapp, and Edin Terzic, late of Dortmund.<\/p>\n
Personally, I feel like the club is floundering and that despite publicly printed \u201cshortlists\u201d we really have no idea what the club wants to do. But if you\u2019re looking for possibilities to think about or even, dare I say it, dream on, now you have a few. Tottenham\u2019s players have the full week off this week as Spurs are already out of the FA Cup, so I\u2019d expect we\u2019ll know before the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OK, I\u2019m going to start with a disclaimer: you should take whatever you read here with an entire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99,7021],"class_list":["post-463159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-tottenham-hotspur-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}