While almost every team can complain about their season Tottenham are a special lot this season.
That’s because things are not good in north London and by that I mean that they are worse than their city rivals, Arsenal.
While Spurs actually lead Arsenal by a scant margin at this point of the season, they were more disappointing that the Gunners in that they had the more experienced manager, the more experienced club and a new stadium to go with higher expectations.
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While Arsenal is likely to sell and buy players, the idea that Tottenham will have to sell Harry Kane is absolutely stunning, although not unexpected.
Kane deserves to play in the Champions League and it appears he will not rot in Tottenham for the sake of any type of legacy. While he wants to leave, he does so to another English club, which not only complicate matters, but even prevent a deal from happening.
This comes on the heels of the firing of the Special One, Jose Mourinho, the failure of the club to land any of their first choice replacements from RB Leipzig or Ajax and the bleak prospects that the club will even qualify for the Europa Conference League, let alone the Europa League or Champions League.
What exactly does the future hold for Spurs at this point?
Tottenham: A team that has seemingly run out of time
Spurs’ problem right now is that they fired their boss, Mauricio Pochettino, after a bad start to last season’s campaign only to hire someone who wasn’t going to be able to get the same results out of the team as Pochettino.
The recently departed boss would’ve been able to right the ship with just a bit of time and patience. It was a reactionary, stupid mistake to fire Poch and is something that should be a fireable offense in all honesty.
Having brought in Mourinho, Spurs did not stay at a consistent level of play and while things looked promising earlier in the season, inconsistency plagued the club as viciously as it plagued any other across this season.
While I wrote that Arsenal and Everton both were consistently inconsistent this season, Tottenham was even worse. Good games would lead into bad games and sometimes the stretches of bad or good results would become hard for even the manager to explain in the press conferences.
Now that Mourinho is gone, Kane looks to be gone, Gareth Bale looks set to return to Spain and Tottenham is left without European competition.
What is there left for the club to do?
They might be able to sell Kane for as much money as they want and use that money to purchase players to fill out the team. Should the club sell Kane, they might as well sell others, too, like Son Hueng-Min and Tanguy Ndombele, with proceeds going towards further club revamping.
Whoever the new boss is will need to have all of the resources available to recreate the club in a way that will allow it to remain competitive for years to come.
As for coaches, that is perhaps an even more difficult a question to answer than personnel choices. They cast their die and since then two of their better players want to leave. They may as well give their new boss, whoever it is, the money to build around Giovanni Lo Celso and Steven Bergwijn going forward.
Sorry Tottenham, I’m suggesting Sarri for Spurs
Just like Pochettino got Tottenham the closest to so many different types of glory across England and Europe, so to might another Maurizio try to succeed where former failed.
Maurizio Sarri, who has not managed since leaving Juventus after just one season, succeeded in his lone year at Chelsea and could very well be the best, and most innovative, manager available.
Tottenham will have to show more patience with Sarri than his previous to bosses did. While I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of Mourinho, all coaches require the time to create an environment and club they would like to manage and that takes time and patience.
The Italian is mercurial in different ways than his direct predecessor, yet with a young team full of players that he can mold to his liking, he has proven himself to be a really interesting manager, capable of winning at seemingly every level despite his background as a banker before he quit to pursue a managing career.
He is a coach that I have lots of respect for and that I feel has been given a raw deal at each place he has managed since leaving Napoli. At his lowest possible point right now, Sarri could build something interesting in north London, and with other candidates not rushing towards the job, one is left to ask what is stopping Spurs from doing so?
Massimiliano Allegri is another option. He and Sarri are two unemployed coaches I enjoy writing about, yet Allegri would’ve been a better fit at Tottenham when Mourinho was hired instead. Now, with players leaving and the cupboard feeling barer than it has in sometime, I don’t believe that that particular Italian would do the job or even want to.
Sarri, on the other hand, likes a challenge as well as the process of creation. He would not blink twice at the chance to go against Chelsea in the league after they kicked him out despite winning the Europa League.
Tottenham could then finally get on with their future as a club. With a manager who knows what he wants. For Spurs, what more can they possibly lose anyway?