A former West Ham United coach has joined the Tottenham coaching staff just before the sides clash in the Premier League on Saturday.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s side face a huge game this weekend as West Ham United look to try and pull themselves out of the relegation zone at the home of their bitter rivals.
Claiming a win over Spurs would be particularly sweet for several reasons.
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Any win over them would naturally be widely celebrated among the Hammers faithful, while it would also inflict further misery onto Thomas Frank’s side.
As a former Spurs boss himself, Nuno would no doubt love to put one over a club who sacked him after only 17 games.
Frank is under his own pressure at Spurs but has turned to a certain John Heitinga ahead of the game.
John Heitinga appointed as Tottenham assistant coach
On Thursday, Tottenham confirmed that the Dutchman had been appointed as Frank’s first-team assistant coach.
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The former Everton defender, of course, worked in a similar role under David Moyes at West Ham between 2023 and 2024.
Heitinga played under Moyes on Merseyside and would later join Arne Slot’s backroom staff at Liverpool before he was appointed as Ajax’s head coach in May 2025.
Things did not go to plan, however, and Heitinga was sacked by Ajax in November.
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A statement from Frank on Tottenham’s official website read: “John is a great addition to our coaching staff. His ability, personality and character will add huge value both on and off the pitch.
“He had an impressive playing career across Europe – including five years in the Premier League – and with the Dutch national team.
“As a former defender, that will be one of his main responsibilities on the training pitch, and he brings great coaching and management experiences from all levels of the game, which will really help us moving forward.”
The Tottenham player that John Heitinga helped West Ham sign
Heitinga worked closely with Mohammed Kudus both before and during his time at West Ham.
The two crossed paths at Ajax and, speaking in 2023, Moyes confirmed that Heitinga helped him in the process of bringing Kudus to east London.
He said (via The Standard): “I didn’t know I was going to end up getting them [Kudus and Edson Alvarez] because they were two lads on our list of recruitment.
“We were keen on getting Joao Palhinha from Fulham and we didn’t get him. We were obviously looking to see who we could try and get after that. James Ward-Prowse was high on my list no matter what.
“But I was able to talk to Johnny about Edson and then Mo when he started to become a consideration. Steven Pienaar has been at Ajax as well and he was one of my ex-players [at Everton] so I phoned him about them too.”
Kudus, of course, left West Ham for Spurs last summer and managed to invoke the ire of Hammers supporters along the way with some of his comments.
The Ghana international, however, will not be able to feature on Saturday because of a quad injury that will likely rule him out until April.