Tottenham Hotspur have had four managers since they showed the exit door to Mauricio Pochettino in November 2019, months after he guided the north London club to their first ever Champions League final.
José Mourinho, who was appointed as Pochettino’s successor, was sacked in April 2021. In need of a new permanent manager, Nuno Espírito Santo was brought in last summer and was replaced by Antonio Conte in November.
Prior to appointing the ex-Wolves manager, Tottenham looked at a few other coaches and this includes Gennaro Gattuso. Spurs became an option for the Italian after he refused to take the Fiorentina job despite reaching an agreement.
The current Valencia manager has now explained he didn’t have an agreement in place with Spurs when he rejected the chance to manage the Serie A side.
“Everyone thought I had left Fiorentina because I was already in agreement with Tottenham, but it didn’t happen like that,” Gattuso told Sky Italia.
“Tottenham came later, then I didn’t go there to work for things that were not true. The Tottenham managers fell for it and I paid. When these things happen, it becomes difficult to defend yourself, luckily at Valencia the management supported me.
“Social media can destroy a character or a person and there are many examples: I think of the kids who end up on the internet, they remain labeled for the rest of their lives, due to a small mistake.
“You have to work on this. When you have a family and friends who support you on a daily basis, everything goes away, but if you don’t have all of this it’s difficult.
“Not all human beings are strong, it’s a world too complicated to understand and I think there they would like some rules. I let a lot of things that have been said go by, even if I was really bad. But that’s okay.”
Tottenham won’t be disappointed at losing out on Gattuso, given they brought Conte to the club and he guided Spurs to a top four finish last season.
