Tottenham Hotspur sees Erik ten Hag as a candidate to succeed José Mourinho, so claims Football London Thursday. The coach of Ajax is not described as the top candidate, but his name is mentioned in a list of trainers who have impressed the club management. Ryan Mason is currently in charge of Tottenham as an interim trainer.
The club has drawn up a profile: the new trainer must be ‘progressive and offensive’, must have a ‘preference for football from possession of the ball’ and above all must ‘fit within the club culture’. Mauricio Pochettino’s time, between 2014 and 2019, serves as a blueprint for this. The current PSG coach tried to play a neat positional play with Tottenham, with the ability to quickly switch from defensive to attacking positions. He led Tottenham to the Champions League final in 2019, at the expense of Ten Hag’s Ajax, but was fired in November of that year when he and his team were in fourteenth place in the Premier League. Mourinho was then appointed as his successor and received his congé on Monday.
The age of the new trainer is irrelevant, he assures Football London. Tottenham currently has the youngest Premier League coach of all time for the group with Mason: on Wednesday he made his debut against Southampton (2-1 win) at the age of 29 years and 312 days. Chairman Daniel Levy mainly looks at how a trainer ‘sees the game’. For example, the name of 33-year-old Julian Nagelsmann is on the shortlist, although his arrival will be difficult. The trainer of RB Leipzig is expected to be relatively expensive and is also in the interest of Bayern Munich, which is looking for a successor to Hansi Flick. Brendan Rodgers of Leicester City is also mentioned. Rodgers was already in the picture at Tottenham before Mourinho was appointed in November 2019 and the club has not forgotten him.
The clubless Maurizio Sarri and Athletic Club coach Marcelino passed in review in the international media this week, but according to Football London not seriously in the picture. The same goes for national coach Gareth Southgate and the clubless Eddie Howe. Brighton & Hove Albion manager Graham Potter will be kept an eye on, as will Ten Hag. “One of the concerns about the 51-year-old coach is how deeply rooted he is in the culture at Ajax and the famed structure of that club, and how that would be reflected if he worked at a completely different club, especially in the Premier League “, it sounds nevertheless. Finally, Massimiliano Allegri is called an ‘attractive option’. Unlike other candidates, Allegri does not have to be taken away from another club and has an impressive record. His command of English is a concern.
Ten Hag’s name also appeared in the German press this week. The trainer stands according to the Frankfurter Rundschau on the list of the board of Eintracht Frankfurt. The surprising number three in the Bundesliga is looking for a suitable successor for Adi Hütter. Starting next season, the Austrian coach will be the head coach of Borussia Mönchengladbach, which will see Marco Rose leave for Borussia Dortmund this summer. In the search for a replacement for Rose, Gladbach also placed Ten Hag on a list of possible candidates. According to BILD there would even have been talks between club and trainer, although according to Ten Hag there was no question of that. Gladbach’s management ultimately chose to separate Hütter from Frankfurt.