Nagelsmann isn’t ‘available’ just because he’s out of a job – surely he can do better than Spurs? | OneFootball

This feels like a very obvious point to make but…surely Julian Nagelsmann isn’t actually going to be Tottenham manager, is he?

We just keep coming back to the same question. ‘But why?’ The fact he likes the (admittedly and undeniably impressive) stadium and once owned a Spurs shirt feels very flimsy. I once had a Hibernian shirt for reasons that now escape me many decades later, but have never been consumed by a burning desire for the Easter Road hotseat. Maybe that’s just my own lack of ambition.

But Nagelsmann has no such character flaw, and as such surely must see he can do much better if he just waits a bit. No point diving straight into something unsatisfactory on the rebound.

Again, all feels very obvious, but somehow feels like it needs saying. He remains a clear bookies’ favourite. We feel like we’re taking crazy pills.

We keep seeing people say “He’s available now! Get him in now!” and we find ourselves thinking…well he isn’t, is he? Not really. He’s not currently employed by anyone else as a football manager, but that isn’t quite the same thing as being available.

He’s only been out of a job five minutes. And a high-pressure, high-attention job at that. It’s sometimes easy in England to forget or underestimate the precise level of focus in Germany that comes with being Bayern Munich manager. Especially being Bayern Munich manager during times of relative strife.

There aren’t six or seven big clubs to split the attention there. It’s 90% Bayern, 5% Borussia Dortmund, 2% idly considering whatever the f*ck Hannover are up to at the moment and then rounded up with a bit of Schalke, Leipzig, Eintracht and the rest.

Nagelsmann would be crazy to do anything at all before the summer for that reason alone. He needs some time to decompress and put his spell at Bayern into some kind of perspective. But even on the list of the crazy things he could do before the summer, ‘take the Spurs job and try to work out which centre-back to use as an emergency left-back’ would be right near the top of that list of crazy things.

There are going to be other jobs available in the summer. (Again, shouldn’t need saying but…) Real Madrid is one. Chelsea possibly another. Both come with greater attention and potential upside than the Spurs job. Clearly.

Now you could argue that Nagelsmann might decide that actually another superclub job is the last thing he wants. That going back to a club that needs a project manager after a couple of failed dabblings in the superclub market might be just the thing for him. It seems unlikely that he would come to that conclusion, but not impossible. Bayern takes a toll.

But even then it’s a decision to be taken and conclusion to be reached in the summer with a clear head.

There is no coherent case to be made that jumping into the Spurs job at any point over the next few weeks is a sensible best option for Nagelsmann. Even if he’d quite like the job, it is not one where missing out would be the subject of intense and long-lasting rueing. Other comparable or better options will come his way.

There is, we suppose, a sort of tacit admission of all this from Spurs fans making the “He’s available now! Get him now!” argument. It’s based in some significant part on not wanting more time spaffed away on caretaker managers, sure, but at least some of that desperation for a swift appointment is sensing that Nagelsmann might be feeling a touch vulnerable now and more easily swayed into foolishness than he might be come the clearer days of June.

Of course Daniel Levy would very much like to appoint him now. It’s hard to think of a more nauseating example of someone falling on their feet than that would represent, even if Nagelsmann’s sudden availability isn’t entirely unrelated to Spurs’ own manager search.

Spurs sniffing around Thomas Tuchel was surely at least some kind of factor in Bayern deciding to push the button when they did. We’d also now quite like it if Spurs sniffing around Nagelsmann prompted Chelsea to pull the plug on Graham Potter.

Then, of course, Potter can take the Tottenham job as is the God-given right of all former Chelsea managers.

Nagelsmann can then take his turn at Spurs in a couple of years after Chelsea have ground down his soul too.

That is the natural order of things. Let’s not make any rash or hasty decisions now that screw with fate please, guys.