Guardian: Tottenham to announce Paulo Fonseca as new manager on Wednesday

According to the Guardian, Tottenham Hotspur have their man. Fabrizio Romano and Marcus Christenson report that Paulo Fonseca has agreed to become the next head coach at Spurs, and will sign a new two year contract with an option for an additional year. The club is expected to make the appointment official on Wednesday.

Fonseca was apparently the top choice of Tottenham’s new Managing Director of Football, Fabio Paratici, who was himself announced on Saturday and who officially begins on July 1. Paratici is technically still on gardening leave from his previous job at Juventus, but has been working for Spurs in the meantime.

Fonseca was until May the manager at Roma, and Dan Friedkin, the new American owners, decided to let Fonseca’s contract expire in order to attract Jose Mourinho. And yes, there’s all sorts of irony in the way this all played out. Fonseca is an unknown to most Spurs fans, but he is well respected after positive stints in both Rome and with Shakhtar Donetsk in the Ukraine, and plays a style of football that is much closer to Tottenham’s “DNA.”

That said, he will have enormous shoes to fill, with the club still rebuilding after Mauricio Pochettino took Spurs to the Champions League final two seasons ago. He’ll also need to convince a skeptical Spurs fan base, one that is already upset about not only Jose Mourinho’s disastrous tenure and the clubs’ dalliance with the Super League, that he is the right man for the job after Daniel Levy’s flirtations with Julian Nagelsmann, Pochettino, and Antonio Conte.

The “Welcome to Tottenham” post is already pre-written. Now we’re just waiting for the official word from Spurs.