Premier League giants Tottenham Hotspur have finally managed to hire a successor to Jose Mourinho as the London club’s long drawn search for a new manager ended with the Portuguese Nuno Espirito Santo.
Nuno, who was in charge of Wolverhampton Wanderers, was out of a job since the end of the season as the Wolves decided to end a fruitful four year partnership.
The Portuguese coach had managed to help Wolves win promotion to the Premier League in 2018 and followed that up with two remarkable 7th place finishes. But an indifferent start to last season saw them slump to 13th and that brought an end to the partnership.
“When you have a squad with quality and talent, we want to make the fans proud and enjoy,” Nuno said. “It’s an enormous pleasure and honor (to be here), there’s joy and I’m happy and looking forward to starting work.”
“We don’t have any days to lose and we must start working immediately as pre-season starts in a few days,” he added.
Tottenham finished a disappointing seventh last season and Mourinho was fired in April. Ryan Mason was put in temporary charge of the London club until the end of the season.
After firing Mourinho in April, Tottenham then tried to bring back Mauricio Pochettino before turning its attention to Antonio Conte.
Talks were quickly shelved after it was clear Conte did not fit the profile and former Roma coach Paulo Fonseca, who Mourinho is replacing in the Italian capital, was set to get the job. But the pursuit of Fonseca ended and Tottenham turned its attention to trying to hire former AC Milan and Napoli coach Gennaro Gattuso before a fan backlash.
New Tottenham football managing director Fabio Paratici and chairman Daniel Levy then sought to bring in Nuno.
“We should like to thank our supporters for all their patience throughout this process,” Levy said. “I’ve spoken already about the need to revert back to our core DNA of playing attacking, entertaining football and Fabio and I believe Nuno is the man who can take our talented group of players, embrace our young players coming through and build something special.”
(With AP inputs)