Back in February 2020, Jose Mourinho openly waxed lyrical about Nuno Espirito Santo, confident that he could manage a bigger club, such as Tottenham Hotspur.
Former Tottenham Hotspur head coach Jose Mourinho had previously professed his confidence in Nuno Espirito Santo being ready to step up to the challenge of managing a “bigger club,” amid reports linking him with the job in north London.
According to a Sky Sports report, Tottenham are currently engaged in talks with the 47-year-old Portuguese to take over the seat vacated by Mourinho as the club’s head coach.
Tottenham will kick off the 2021/22 Premier League campaign at home to Manchester City, and have been seriously hunting for a new boss for more than two months after giving Mourinho the sack following a run of mediocre results. Since then, a flurry of names have both been linked with the job with some even close to taking it, but no deal has yet been finalized with any of the contenders.
But now according to Sky Sports, Nuno has now become a ‘strong contender’ to land the role, as the club are fast running out of options to turn to.
Not that it would matter but Mourinho would give his seal of approval on the decision to appoint Nuno as his replacement, having previously admitted that his fellow countryman is up to the task of taking the reins of a bigger club, with no disrespect towards Wolves being intended.
“I think he was a good keeper, but I think he’s a very good coach,” Mourinho said back in February last year. “So I really think that he’s doing fantastic work.
“We are in a generation where sometimes coaches get jobs and nobody knows why. In this case it’s just about his work.
“Work and work and work and prove how good he is and prove that in my opinion, I hope the Wolves fans and board forgive me, but I think he has conditions for bigger and I hope one day the bigger comes because he is doing fantastic work.”
Despite opting to leave Wolves at the end of the 2020/21 campaign, which was slightly underwhelming for the Midlands outfit, Nuno enjoyed no shortage of success during his time at Molineux.
As the head coach ahead of the 2017/18 season, Nuno guided Wolves to the Championship title in his first season in charge, before guiding them to back-to-back top-seven Premier League finishes, an FA Cup semi-final and the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League in 2019/20.
Of course, expectations will be appreciably higher in north London for the former Wolves chief, but he has proven that he can bring success to clubs, something Spurs will be desperate for if he does land the job.
Should Levy offer him the role, it would be the fifth club that he has taken charge of during his career, previously spending time at Rio Ave and Porto, alongside spells at Valencia and Wolves.