Brendan Rodgers explains decision to reject Tottenham job

Brendan Rodgers has ruled himself out of the running for the Tottenham job
Brendan Rodgers has ruled himself out of the running for the Tottenham job / Pool/Getty Images
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Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers has admitted he rejected the chance to move to Tottenham because he feels his current group of players have the potential to grow into something special.

90min revealed in March that Spurs had set their sights on Rodgers even before the departure of Jose Mourinho, with club officials stepping up their pursuit of the Leicester boss following Mourinho's dismissal.

Jose Mourinho
Mourinho was sacked earlier in April / Pool/Getty Images

However, Rodgers knocked back Spurs' advances and has since confessed that he is infatuated by Leicester's current project. The former Liverpool and Celtic boss has taken the Foxes to the FA Cup final and they currently sit third in the Premier League, and Rodgers feels he has unfinished business.

"I’m very, very happy here. I have a huge respect here for the players, the board and I really feel that I want to continue my work here," he said (via the Daily Mail). "I’ve got a set of players that give me their heart and soul every single day and also I can see a future here in terms of the development of the squad.

"I’ve got a really strong relationship with the board. We work very closely together. I always knew what the challenge was coming here, to try and improve the squad, and over the last couple of years what we’ve been able to do is build an infrastructure around behaviour and creating a mind set in order to win.

Brendan Rodgers
Rodgers wants to keep improving with Leicester / Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

"That’s not easy but you see now the mentality around developing that will and desire to win. Now for the next period of years let’s see if we can roll that out now, can we continually evolve.

"Tottenham is a great club, one of the biggest clubs in Britain but for me I’m just in a really, really happy place in my life."

Having also missed out on RB Leipzig's Julian Nagelsmann, who has agreed to join Bayern Munich for next season, Spurs have been forced to turn their attention to other targets, one of which is Wolves' Nuno Espirito Santo.

According to The Sun, Nuno's agent, Jorge Mendes, has reached out to Spurs and hopes to strike a deal to take the Portuguese boss to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Mendes is already working on bringing former Benfica boss Bruno Lage to Wolves as Nuno's replacement in the hope that it will make it easier for his client to take the vacant Spurs job this summer.


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