Journalist reveals what Spurs found ‘very strange’ during Ten Hag talks

Tottenham Hotspur were heavily linked with a move for Erik ten Hag in the days following Jose Mourinho’s dismissal as head coach.

Italian football reporter Fabrizio Romano claimed that the Ajax boss had a meeting arranged with Tottenham to discuss the vacancy and was open to leaving the Dutch giants.

A move failed to materialise, with the 51-year-old soon after putting pen to paper on a one-year contract extension to keep him at the Eredivisie champions until the summer of 2023 (Evening Standard).

Valentijn Driessen, chief football writer for the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf has claimed that Tottenham were left surprised during their discussions with Ten Hag after he allegedly revealed that he had no plans to bring any of his current backroom staff with him to North London.

It is said that Ten Hag did not make a strong impression during his talks with Tottenham and they ended up looking elsewhere which ended up with the appointment of Nuno Espirito Santo ten weeks later.

Driessen said as quoted by Voetbal Zone: “Which they found very strange at Spurs , and we think it is very normal in the Netherlands that if you get a trainer you only get one trainer, but with the English you get a whole staff: a physiotherapist, doctor, assistant trainer, goalkeeper coach.

“You just enter there with a whole group. So they also asked him: who are you taking with you? Yes, nobody. They don’t know that there. He wanted Sjors Ultee, that name had also been mentioned. But you normally go there with a whole group.”

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It does seem surprising that Ten Hag did not want to bring any of his backrooom staff with him while Antonio Conte reportedly had the other extreme in experiencing issues over how many of his team he could bring to the club (Sky).

It remains to be seen what role Ledley King will be given under Nuno, while Ryan Mason is expected to go back to his academy role.

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