The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Tuesday, June 8

Hi, all!

Here’s another ramble to the theme of Tottenham’s managerial search, but I promise it isn’t another poll.

Ramble of the Day

To state the obvious, Tottenham’s search for a manager isn’t working out so well. There’s no need to recap it, but this might lead the club to make a pick that is not ideal. It seems within the realm of possibility that the club is running out of great options, and if there really are no options at all, I ask: Which Tottenham players would make half-decent player coaches?

I feel the recent Ryan Mason experience has highlighted the very high risk of throwing someone into the job, while also ruling him out. That should probably rule out all of our inexperienced players, but again, we’re talking worst-case scenarios here. (Really, I’m just making up a scenario that Mason doesn’t qualify for.) Feel free to categorize every player, but I’ll just share my top three:

• Hugo Lloris: He’s maybe one of the few players to suggest that he has stylistic preferences, and he seems to believe in the Mauricio Pochettino style of playing a game. This may not go much better than the Mason period, but desperate times!
• Pierre-Emile Højbjerg: He was reportedly one of José Mourinho’s last fans in the locker rooms so I’d take points off for that, but he’s one of the smarter players on the pitch and might be decent in terms of leadership.
• Toby Alderweireld: Similar in profile to Højbjerg, but switch out Mourinho for Roberto Martínez.

There is probably a very large group of managers that would do this job better than any of these players, honestly. Here’s hoping Spurs hire one of them instead of one of the players.

tl;dr: Let’s decide which players would make the bets player-coaches, since Spurs’ managerial search is going so well.

Stay informed, read this: Brian Melley on the lawsuit 12 female water polo players filed against USA Water Polo and a California club for sexual abuse, with the sides reaching a $14m settlement for the Associated Press

Links of the Day

Aston Villa signed Emiliano Buendía from Norwich.

Ukraine’s kit for the Euros sparked outrage in Russia because it includes a map of Ukraine that includes Crimea.

A longer read: John Duerden on the state of Myanmar’s national team as it begins qualifying for Qatar 2022 amid unrest in the country for the Guardian