Sky: Nagelsmann prefers Chelsea move over Tottenham

If you didn’t expect that this story was coming, you haven’t been following Tottenham Hotspur very long. The big story over the weekend was Chelsea sacking their manager Graham Potter, ostensibly (and very obviously) in order to make an attempt to sign former Bayern Munich manager Julian Nagelsmann, who was himself let go last week. Despite Spurs being in fourth place and Chelsea in 11th, the most predictable headlines are emerging about Spurs’ chances of actually appointing Nagelsmann — and they’re not good.

Now, I don’t think we should read too much into this reporting at present. Nagelsmann is very unlikely to want to start a new project until this summer, and will take his time making a decision as to where he wants to go next. That said, it’s not super promising. Despite Chelsea arguably being in worse shape than Tottenham even with their big spending and bloated, talented squad, they still (apparently) have scads of money and a lot of prestige behind them. That’s going to make Chelsea an attractive destination for top managers no matter how crappy they’re playing, and especially because Spurs can’t have nice things that don’t invariably lead to garbage low block and counter football.

On the other hand... uh... Nagelsmann owned a Spurs shirt at one time? So there’s that.

Look, I wouldn’t blame anyone for being pessimistic about Spurs’ chances of appointing Nagelsmann. And if you want, you could even gin up a compelling thinkpiece about how Nagelsmann isn’t necessarily the right choice for Spurs at this time and Manager X should be hired instead.

That piece won’t be coming from me, though. I think he’d be phenomenal if giving time and support for an overhaul, and I think there are going to be plenty of revolutions on the managerial merry-go-round before the music stops and the horsies stop bobbing up and down and ye gods that’s a tortured metaphor I better stop now.