Report: Graham Potter has “support” from some Spurs players

It might just be that time is a flat circle, or that COVID-time has rotted all of our brains, but despite Jose Mourinho being fired two and a half weeks ago it feels like the search for a new Tottenham Hotspur manager has been taking an inordinately long period of time. It hasn’t, of course, but after an initial swirl of possibilities things have seemed to quiet down some on that front the past few days.

There are still a lot of names that have circulated as possibilities to be Tottenham’s new boss, but it can be difficult to suss out which have potential and which are agents, fan wishcasting, or complete nonsense.

Alasdair Gold, Spurs beat journalist at football.london, is known to have close connections to the club. Today, he posted a more or less exhaustive list of potential candidates and his current understanding of whether or not they are realistic targets for Daniel Levy.

Out of that list, one of the few names to not be dismissed outright is current Brighton & Hove Albion manager Graham Potter, who apparently has caught the eye of a couple unnamed Spurs players.

Tottenham’s eye is certainly believed to have been caught by the style of football produced by Potter’s Brighton team in the past two seasons...

football.london understands a number of Tottenham players would back a move for Potter with the Seagulls manager’s style of play leaving a lasting impression on some of them.

I bet. Under Potter, Brighton has a 2-2 record against Spurs, and have been one of the lower-half Premier League teams that has regularly been a thorn in Tottenham’s side. Potter’s Brighton side have been better than their record shows and have been hugely hurt by some outrageously poor finishing luck. That Potter’s done as well as he has with a team that is significantly less talented than much of the league is to his credit. We’ve already discussed why we think Potter would be a good choice as Spurs’ next manager (trust the process), and it seems like there are a few Spurs players who might actually agree with that opinion as well.

Let’s go!

That doesn’t make Potter a favorite, of course. Tottenham seem to be holding their cards very close the vest at the moment with regard to the manager search. But it’s interesting.

Here are the other names on that list. Names in bold were not dismissed outright by Gold as possibilities, but many of those bolded names also have things about them that could make Spurs pursuing them difficult, either financially or optically.

• Ryan Mason
• Ralf Rangnick
• Antonio Conte
• Julen Lopetegui
• Maurizio Sarri
• Erik Ten Hag
• Gien Piero Gasperini
• Brendan Rodgers
• Paulo Fonseca
• Max Allegri
• Marcelino
• Gareth Southgate
• Scott Parker
• Eddie Howe
• Nuno Espirito Santo
• Roberto Martinez
• Oliver Glasner
• Jurgan Klinsmann