Spurs turn to Milan reject as search for new manager continues

One of my worst nightmares might be coming true. We teased our friendly neighborhood AC Milan supporter, Ed, when there was a rumor circulating that Andre Villas-Boas might take over at the San Siro. That didn't come to fruition, but the reverse nightmare scenario affects all of us. According to Corriere dello Sport, Massimiliano Allegri is a candidate for the Tottenham Hotspur job.

As usual, I will abuse my friendly relationship with SB Nation Soccer writer and fluent Italian-speaker Jack Sargeant to get a translation of this article that is better than what Google Translate spits out. And for that, I am eternally grateful. An excerpt:

An economic agreement between the two parties has already been reached, Allegri has been in London in recent weeks to familiarise himself with the new language and from July 1 will be the club's coach, officially. The Tuscan coach will bring his staff, but also Tassotti, who will leave Milan after 34 years with the club. It was Baldini, Tottenham's director of football, that wanted Allegri on the Spurs bench. The director wanted Allegri at Roma last season before resigning from the giallorossi.

Yep, I'm horrified.

Some of you might be thinking "He's a former AC Milan manager who won a Serie A title and got to the Champions League knockout stages? How bad could this be?" And really, I can forgive you for that, because it's a totally reasonable view to have. It's also reasonable to point out that he was undermined by Milan CEO Adriano Galliani and the Berlusconi family, who sold his best players and failed to address the team's biggest needs. Allegri's job wasn't made easy for him.

But we had a little writers email chain about this, and here's what our resident Milan fan had to say.

He's totally tactically inflexible and is even worse at coming up with Plan Bs than AVB was. Definitely not a progressive hire.

I happen to agree with Ed. Allegri's actually been a bit of a punching bag over at the SB Nation mothership over the last year, mostly because of what Ed said above. For some further reading on Allegri, check out our own Ryan Rosenblatt on why his tenure was proof of Milan's fall from grace and Jack's obituary column after Allegri was sacked.

And for what it's worth, Matt Dunn of The Express thinks this story is nonsense.

Spurs source confirms Allegri story is nonsense. He has a good agent, though, to secure a full front page ad in Corriere #gizzajob

— Matthew Dunn (@MattDunnExpress) April 18, 2014