Cristian Stellini Sacked! – David Isibor Ilford County

Well, while we are on the subject. We may as well talk about Tottenham’s only major trophy in the modern era (2000 and onward). It was the 2007/08 season and Tottenham had finished 11th in the Premier League (sadly, where Chelsea is now). But they had hope. A ray of light in the darkness. They had already been eliminated from the Europa League in the Round of 16 by PSV on pens (6-5) after a stalemate on aggregate (1-1). Manchester United sent them packing in the fourth round of the FA Cup beating Spurs 3-1. And with Chelsea being in fine form, winning the League Cup (known as Carabao Cup now) seemed very unlikely. However, manager Juande Ramos who only took over the club from the 27th of October 2007 seemed to have a master plan. Jonathan Woodgate in extra time headed in the winner to bury Chelsea and win their first official/major trophy. Juande Ramos had done what many top managers couldn’t do today. Win Spurs a trophy.

Juande Ramos is quite unknown, and I wonder if many Tottenham fans know him. However, he managed Sevilla for 2 seasons and won the Copa del Rey, the Supercopa de Espana, 2 UEFA Cups (Europa League as they are known now) and a UEFA Super Cup. So, he came to Tottenham with an impressive résumé. He is currently unemployed after leaving Malaga in 2016.

Since Juande Ramos, Tottenham have had 9 different managers, and all have failed to win a trophy. After Juande Ramos, Harry Redknapp was appointed in October 2008 and was sacked in June 2012. André Villas-Boas followed only managing the club for season. And was then followed by Tim Sherwood, who only lasted for 5 months before being sacked. Then came in Mauricio Pochettino, by far there most successful manager in recent times even with the lack of silverware. After leaving Southampton at the end of the 2013/14 season (after taking them to an 8th place finish in the Premier League), he was appointed manager of Tottenham Hotspur. In his first season, he took Tottenham to the final of the League Cup only to be beaten 2-0 by Chelsea and finished 5th in the league. After an amazing run of form in the 2015/16 season, Tottenham looked to be favourites to lift the Premier League trophy. However, Chelsea and Eden Hazard made sure this didn’t happen by scoring a late equaliser in their game on the 2nd of May 2016 to confirm Leicester City as PL champions. They finished 3rd after losing their final game of the season to allow North London rivals Arsenal to finish 2nd. In the following season (2016/17), Tottenham finished 2nd behind winners Chelsea with the highest tally of points since the Premier League began (Premier League created in 1992, previously known as English League). Pochettino is also the only Spurs manager to have won 100 PL games. This occurred during the 2018/19 season, where Pochettino took Spurs to the Champions League final after defeating Ajax on away goals after a stunning 2nd half hattrick from Lucas Moura to win the 2nd leg 3-2 after being 2 nil down. However, they lost 2 nil to Liverpool in Madrid. But on 19th November 2019, Pochettino’s journey at Tottenham ended with disappointing domestic results led to him being sacked. Tottenham had been 14th in the Premier League at the time.

After him José Mourinho – the Special One – arrived but even he couldn’t produce anything special to get Spurs a bit more silverware in their cabinet. In his first season, he took Spurs to 6th place finish, but failed to qualify for the Champions League. In the following season, he took Tottenham to the EFL Cup final. However, he was sacked days before the final leaving Ryan Mason to replace him as interim manager. Ryan Mason lost that EFL Cup final and continued as interim manager until the end of the season. The following season Nuno Espírito Santo was appointed as head coach didn’t bring the change that Spurs had hoped for. After an up and down season, he was sacked in November 2021 after only 4 months in charge and was replaced by Antonio Conte. In the 2021/22 season, he helped Tottenham qualify for Champions League football by finishing 4th in the league. They were knocked out of the Champions League by AC Milan and in March 2023 after a 3-3 draw away to Southampton (who at the time were bottom of the league). Antonio Conte had had enough! He gave an interview on how the players were too selfish and how they have never won something. After losing to Sheffield United in the FA Cup, Antonio Conte left the club by mutual consent. At the time Tottenham were 4th in the league.

Then up stepped Cristian Stellini. After Conte’s outburst, Stellini was appointed head coach until the end of the season by owner Daniel Levy. Sadly, he didn’t last that long. Starting off with a 1-1 draw to Everton, he followed this with a controversial 2-1 win against Brighton where he was sent off for doing nothing. However, it seems Stellini was fortune’s fool as he then lost his following game against Bournemouth 3-2 and Spurs were then battered 6-1 by flying magpies, Newcastle – conceding 5 in 21 minutes. After being sacked, Ryan Mason was once again called up to be manager of Spurs for the remainder of the season. With chances of gaining top 4 slowly dissipating, can Ryan Mason make the most out of the season.