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Paulo Fonseca will become Tottenham’s next manager. Eventually.

When? Who can say?

Paulo Fonseca coach of AS Roma smiles the Serie A football... Photo by Andrea Staccioli/LightRocket via Getty Images

Tottenham Hotspur have a new permanent head coach. Or at least, that’s what everyone WANTS you to think. Paulo Fonseca has been the Head Coach in Waiting for at least a week now, but it’s not really clear when he’s actually going to take charge. Past reports suggested that yesterday was the day we’d get an official announcement from the club, but yesterday came and went with no announcement. There were also reports that we’d see something by “next week” sometime.

Now, according to Alasdair Gold, it’s “before the end of the month.”

It seems as though Fonseca is currently on holiday in Ukraine, which makes sense — Fonseca’s wife is Ukrainian and maybe they’ve had this planned for a while now. (I know my family would be irritated if my job forced me to have to cancel a planned family vacation because of work responsibilities.) Gold also mooted the possibility that Italian tax law is forcing Fonseca to “wait until the end of the second year of his contract start date in Italy before officially beginning a job in a new country” in order to get the big sports tax break.

Whatever the reason, he’s still not here and won’t be for a bit. That means that Spurs are in a weird position where they have a new head coach, but also DON’T have a new head coach. Schrödinger’s Manager, anyone?