Tottenham Hotspur supporters have already witnessed a sea of changes this year. After winning the Europa League, Spurs fired Ange Postecoglou for finishing 17th in the Premier League. And after one of their most active summer transfer periods in recent memory, Spurs also gave Daniel Levy the boot after years of stingy spending and underperformance relative to the rest of the Big Six.
So far, Tottenham have not seen any of the fruits of this actions born. They have been atrocious in the Premier League under Thomas Frank, and all signs point to another transfer window of empty promises to the supporters despite the encouraging summer; Antoine Semenyo, for example, is already entirely off the table before January has arrived, let alone Christmas.
And to compound matters, the most competent member of the front office appears to be bolting. Perhaps it says something about how far Tottenham have fallen that executive Fabio Paratici is flirting with a move to Fiorentina, the literal worst team in Serie A this season.
Tottenham could be in crisis
Every big transfer reporter is calling it a close move, including Fabrizio Romano, and now the other titan of Italian football journalism, Gianluca Di Marzio, is saying the same. Per Di Marzio, Fiorentina boss Rocco Commisso and Fabio Paratici are in "advanced talks", and the Tottenham Hotspur man is "increasingly close" to a move to Florence. Di Marzio says that "everything points" to a switch being completed, and Tottenham themselves will come to an official decision in the coming "few days".
The deal is set to be a 4.5 year contract that would make Paratici the center of an ambitious rebuild. Fiorentina were one of the biggest risers in European football last season, coaxing breakout seasons out of players like Moise Kean and Dodo. This season, they have been the polar opposite and an embarrassment, ruing the appointment of former Serie A title winning AC Milan boss Stefano Pioli, who was coaching in Saudi Arabia before moving back to Italian football.
Tottenham without Paratici is a definite cause for concern for Spurs supporters, because it leaves the underwhelming Johan Lange as the main executive voice in terms of club decisions in the transfer market. Lange has a mixed track record, whereas Paratici has a proven one and helped build the nucleus responsible for the Europa League triumph. Worse yet, the imminent Paratici departure seems to hint at an overarching aura of dysfunction at the N17.