Paulo Fonseca reveals why Spurs appointment fell through

Paulo Fonseca has explained the reason why his appointment to become Tottenham head coach this summer fell through at the last minute, citing a change of direction in the club’s mindset when new football managing director Fabio Paratici came on board.

Fonseca had left former club Roma, where he was ironically replaced by ex-Spurs boss Jose Mourinho, and looked set to be appointed in north London. Instead, the deal was called off and the club eventually hired Nuno Espirito Santo instead.

Now, Fonseca has lifted the lid on what happened in an interview with Portuguese television channel SIC, stating that, “All the details were settled.”

However, things seemed to change when Paratici arrived at the club from Juventus as a new hire to oversee footballing matters. Even at the time it was reported that the Italian had a different opinion on the search for a new manager to chairman Daniel Levy and technical performance director Steve Hitchen, who was believed to have been responsible for the original shortlist.

Levy’s preference is said to have been for a certain type of expansive and attacking football, with Paratici favouring a more conservative approach, a version of events which now seems to tally up with what Fonseca has revealed.

“I was really prepared for a new adventure at Tottenham but, with the general manager (Paratici) coming in, we had some disagreements that were difficult to overcome,” he explained.

“I really want to coach the best teams, but I cannot compromise my ideas, I cannot compromise my values just to coach a big team. The truth is that [Levy] and [Hitchen] always argued that the team should be offensive, should be attractive, should be a dominant team which went in the direction of what my teams are, in essence.

“And with the entry of the new general director, things changed a little bit. They wanted to go in another direction and, obviously, it wasn’t possible to develop something I didn’t believe in.”

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