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According to reports, Tottenham Hotspur have turned their attention to one of their former managers with Ange Postecoglou set to leave the club this summer.

Spurs have endured a disastrous campaign in 2024/25 as they have spent most of the season in the bottom half of the Premier League table.

Postecoglou was praised for making a positive impact during his debut season as Tottenham narrowly missed out on Champions League qualification, but results and performances have fallen off a cliff this term.

Injuries have impacted Spurs more than most, but they have been far from good enough as they have failed in the Premier League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup.

Tottenham’s run in the Europa League has been a saving grace and they face Bodo-Glimt in the first leg of their semi-final next Thursday.

READ: Elanga to Man Utd, Solanke to Liverpool in Premier League re-sign list

It has been suggested that the Australian head coach could save his job by winning the Europa League, but a recent report revealed Spurs will look to appoint a new manager even if they end their trophy drought this season.

Spurs are already linked with several potential replacements and a report from Spanish outlet Fichajes claims they ‘want’ to re-hire Jose Mourinho.

This is likely utter bullsh*t because Mourinho did not exit Spurs on good terms, as he left a couple of days before the 2021 Carabao Cup final against Manchester City.

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👉 Who will be the next manager of Tottenham after Ange Postecoglou?

Since departing Spurs, Mourinho has had spells at AS Roma and Fenerbahce. His stint with the Turkish giants has been mixed and he’s been heavily linked with a potential return to the Premier League of late.

The report claims Spurs are ‘considering’ Mourinho with two ‘key factors’ in his favour, with Chelsea legend and current Coventry City boss Frank Lampard supposedly another option.

‘His experience and ability to handle pressure situations would be key factors in this new environment, where a strong-willed player with a proven track record in Europe is sought.

‘Although no decisions have been made, the return of the Portuguese coach is beginning to take shape as a real possibility. Frank Lampard is also on the list.’

Chelsea legend Joe Cole has backed Mourinho to inspire a “real bounce” from his next club if he returns to the Premier League.

“Genuinely, I think he’s a genius,” Cole said.

“I really do hope we see him in the Premier League again. He still’s got it and I would love to have him back on these shows. He loves England. He loves London.

“Whichever club he comes in, will get a real bounce. I think Jose will stay for the next five, 10 years. But three-four years, you are going to win something, he’s your man.”

Liverpool will confirm themselves as Premier League champions if they beat Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield on Super Sunday.

Jurgen Klopp is long gone, but Liverpool haven’t skipped a beat under Arne Slot — a man who arrived quietly and now finds himself 90 minutes away from a title party.

Slot’s side has turned Anfield into a fortress again, winning 12 matches during an unbeaten 14-match run, and Spurs are the latest lambs to the slaughter.

They haven’t won at Anfield since Harry Redknapp was still telling the world he didn’t know how to send an email. They’ve conceded four in each of their last three trips here, so we don’t have high hopes for them on Sunday.

They’ve lost 10 of 16 away matches, with their typically fun, frantic, and often ineffective style failing to lay a glove on anyone other than teams in crisis.

Mohamed Salah may not be in peak form, but he has bagged 27 goals and 18 assists this campaign. The Egyptian tends to enjoy this fixture, registering 20 goal involvements in 23 matches against Spurs.

It’s nailed on that Liverpool lift the trophy at Anfield on Sunday — and they’ll do it on the back of a win. We just need to find a way to profit from it.

Liverpool vs Tottenham prediction

There’s little sense in backing Slot’s side to win the match at 1/4. Venturing into the handicap market is a risk, because we know that Spurs can score goals.

Both teams have scored in nine of the last 11 meetings, so that may be a good angle to take into consideration, with generous odds of 5/4 about a home win with both teams finding the net.

Tottenham’s terrible away record of 10 defeats in 16 Premier League matches offers little to no hope that they can delay Liverpool’s title procession.

Even if Arsenal drop points on Saturday, we suspect the party atmosphere will allow the Reds to celebrate at Big Ange’s expense.

Mo Salah has enjoyed this fixture over the years by knocking in 15 goals and laying on five assists. Even though he hasn’t scored in five, he’s been relentless in trying to find the net.

He tried his luck seven times during Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Leicester, and he may find just as much space against Spurs.

Liverpool team news

Liverpool’s only confirmed absentee at this stage is defender Joe Gomez. The Reds can field their strongest team as they look to wrap up the title.

Trent Alexander-Arnold may be nearing the end of his Liverpool career, but he’ll join Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson in defence.

Ryan Gravenberch has been a standout performer alongside Alexis Mac Allister in midfield.

Salah failing to score in five feels like the worst goal drought in the history of football, but Liverpool’s main man likes a goal against Spurs.

Cody Gakpo, Dominik Szoboszlai and Luis Diaz should beat out Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez to the attacking spots.

Liverpool expected line-up

Alisson – Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Robertson – Gravenberch, Mac Allister – Salah, Szoboszlai, Gakpo – Diaz

Tottenham team news

Radu Dragusin is ruled out due to injury, while Son Heung-min is a doubt. Even if he recovers, Postecoglou may opt to rest him ahead of Thursday.

Djed Spence could replace Destiny Udogie with a view to their midweek Europa League semi-final.

It could be an otherwise full-strength team, with Big Ange opting to withdraw key players early in the second half.

That may mean a midfield three of Lucas Bergvall, Rodrigo Bentancur and James Maddison.

Brennan Johnson, Dominic Solanke and Matthys Tel will form the front three.

Tottenham expected line-up

Vicario – Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Spence – Bergvall, Bentancur, Maddison – Johnson, Solanke, Tel

Liverpool vs Tottenham: How to watch and listen

Liverpool vs Tottenham will be shown live on Sky Sports HDR, Sky Sports Main Event, and Sky Sports Premier League at 16:30 on Sunday, April 27. Full match commentary will be on BBC Radio 5 Live Sport.

Liverpool vs Tottenham stats

– Liverpool are unbeaten in 14 matches at Anfield, winning 12 and drawing twice.

– They’re also unbeaten in 15 home matches against Tottenham across all competitions, winning 11 and drawing four.

– Liverpool scored four goals in each of their last three home games against Spurs and have already struck 10 past them this campaign.

– Liverpool have scored in every Premier League game they’ve played at Anfield this season, but have also allowed 10 of their visitors to score.

– Mo Salah has scored 15 goals and assisted five in 23 meetings with Tottenham. He’s currently on 55 goal involvements across all competitions.

– Tottenham have lost 10 of their 16 Premier League away matches.

– Tottenham have lost despite scoring on 13 occasions across all competitions.

Crystal Palace’s hard-earned 2-2 draw at Arsenal on Wednesday night was another significant step towards Liverpool’s long-inevitable coronation as Premier League champions, but also a reminder of the strides Palace have made under Oliver Glasner.

Drifting along just above the relegation zone with 25 points from 25 games when he was appointed in February last year, under the Austrian’s watch the club have now amassed 70 points from their last 48 games.

Only the current Premier League top seven have managed more in that time.

That Palace total dwarfs that managed by both Tottenham (56) and Man United (54) over the same period while also beating out other notable mid-table overachievers like Bournemouth, Fulham, Brentford and Brighton.

And the picture might have looked even rosier for Palace had it not been for their appalling start to the 24/25 season. They didn’t win any of their first eight games of the season, losing five. That run accounts for over a third of Glasner’s total Premier League defeats at the club.

With 45 points from their 34 games this season Palace appear set to break new ground and reach 50 points for the first time ever in a Premier League season having been almost heroically consistent in always reaching 40 but never 50 since their return to the top flight over a decade ago.

Palace’s stuttering start to this season can perhaps be explained by adjusting to life without Michael Olise, now starring for Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga, but they have put their slow start firmly behind them now.

Only Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Villa and Newcastle have more points than Palace in 2025, with Chelsea and Nottingham Forest notable names below the Eagles on that particular table alongside the season’s more conspicuous and hilarious bed-sh*tting big clubs.

And it’s not only in the Premier League where Palace have excelled, with an FA Cup semi-final to come this weekend against Aston Villa at Wembley.

Here is the full Premier League table since Glasner’s appointment on February 19 2024:

Tables are fun, aren’t they?

You can build your own custom table, between any two dates on any particular day or matchday, going as far back as when football was invented in 1992.

Scott Parker having ‘admirers’ at Spurs in the Ange Postecoglou replacement search makes a mockery of their ‘free-flowing, attacking and entertaining’ DNA.

A week on from marvelling at a shortlist which contained four names whose only shared trait was that they were among the few above Spurs in a Premier League table who might feasibly consider inheriting this risible dumpster fire despite the considerable occupational hazard posed to their health and career prospects, we must again revisit those Daniel Levy quotes from 2021.

“We are acutely aware of the need to select someone whose values reflect those of our great club and return to playing football with the style for which we are known – free-flowing, attacking and entertaining – whilst continuing to embrace our desire to see young players flourish from our Academy alongside experienced talent.”

They appointed Nuno Espirito Santo as Jose Mourinho’s replacement six weeks later, then sacked him for Antonio Conte five months after that.

In the same end-of-season letter to Spurs fans written to try and explain why the future of an exasperatingly dogmatic manager had dominated the discourse of a season in which they threatened to end their long trophy drought, Levy admitted that “we lost sight of some key priorities and what’s truly in our DNA”.

Four years later, history has repeated itself but that DNA can be found all over the scene of what has been a criminally poor season. Only three Premier League sides have scored more often than Spurs, whose games have involved the most goals of any team, and they are the only club with two representatives in the top 10 teenagers to have played the most minutes, even if neither Archie Gray nor Lucas Bergvall exactly came through the system in north London.

Ange Postecoglou has delivered on those promises if nothing else. His guarantee of a second-season trophy will at least remain alive into the final month of the season. But a generationally, historically abysmal Premier League campaign cannot be excused.

Spurs are on to beat their worst Premier League finish (15th, currently 16th), lowest Premier League points total (44, currently 37) and highest number of defeats in a season (19, currently 18). After a summer in which they broke their transfer record and spent more than £100m, and from a strong platform Postecoglou himself installed a season before, no manager should expect to survive on those numbers at this level.

Then comes the lurch. It was present as far back as Levy’s first managerial change at Spurs, when he traded in George Graham for Glenn Hoddle. He has since substituted Juande Ramos for Harry Redknapp, then Mauricio Pochettino for Mourinho in moves entirely atypical of how a competent club with clarity of vision and courage in their convictions should operate. But if the ‘admirers’ within Spurs of Scott Parker’s work have any sort of sway to push forward his summer candidacy then this slide might not necessarily stop soon.

Parker is an undeniably talented coach yet the ludicrous artificial inflation of his reputation has been a career hindrance rather than help. A Championship promotion expert who has never avoided relegation in any of his Premier League seasons should not even be able to earwig any conversations at Spurs; at least Tim Sherwood kept Aston Villa up.

And especially after this particular season the idea that Spurs could appoint Parker and rely on how he is ‘well-liked by supporters and also coached within the club’s academy set-up’ is preposterous. Even Levy cannot be foolish enough to think it would go down well, and Parker’s philosophy has undergone a quite noticeable shift this past year.

In no world does the “free-flowing, attacking and entertaining” Spurs DNA tally with scoring fewer goals than 14th-placed Norwich and shattering records for defensive miserliness in the second tier. Burnley have kept 29 clean sheets this season; Spurs have mustered 13 in almost two whole seasons under Postecoglou. Their 29th most recent Premier League clean sheet came in March 2022.

Are the 55 Championship minutes of Enock Agyei enough evidence of Parker’s trust in youth? That is the only playing time afforded to a Burnley academy graduate this season and only two players younger than 22 have been given starts for the Clarets. Luca Koleosho has rarely been seen since being dropped in January and Wilson Odobert joined Spurs last August.

That Parker could make the same move is unfathomable and it even being a point of discussion is absurd. He might one day fulfil his undoubted potential in the dugout but he failed at Club Brugge and his two previous English clubs in Fulham and Bournemouth evolved and improved significantly after he left.

Bayern Munich panicked into appointing Burnley’s manager because their in-built advantages meant they could afford to. If Spurs believe the world’s most effective stepping stone can provide the answer to their problems they are even more lost than first feared.

We put it to you that Richarlison is the most Spurs player of the club’s current banter era.

You look at Richarlison and think how much more Spurs could he be, and the answer is none.

There are more obviously crowd-pleasing answers. You might suggest Harry Kane for his infamous trophy-dodging, but he’s also just objectively too good at football, isn’t he? His being at Spurs was an outlier, a bottling of lightning that happens to a club once in a generation if they’re incredibly lucky. The Spursiness all belonged to the club in magnificently and relentlessly failing to achieve anything tangible with the world-class superstar that fell in to their lap.

No, he doesn’t quite fit the bill. Then there is the even more obvious chortle-generating route of identifying a player who is simply sh*t. That also isn’t really quite fair, though. Modern Spurs – before this season, at least – have generally been a very specific kind of sh*t which is the kind of sh*t that is almost but not quite actually good.

This is where Richarlison comes in. He is nearly good. He is Proper Spurs. He has no club honours on his CV whatsoever, for one thing. He has been Brazil’s No. 9, but at a time when Brazil’s glamour and glitz has looked somewhat weather-beaten and frayed at the edges, a football team being carried by stories of an increasingly distant past. The timeframes don’t align, but it’s a tale as old as Spurs.

He scored the goal of the tournament at the 2022 World Cup, but nobody much remembers that now because Brazil crashed out disappointingly. You can’t tell me that isn’t something imbued with overwhelming Spurs energy. This is a club that has worra-trophied itself not one but two Puskas-winning goals in the recent years from Son Heung-min and Erik Lamela.

Richarlison has that inherently Spursy knack for occupying the indefinable liminal space between good and rubbish. He can never go truly unnoticed because he’s far too busy a footballer. He grabs your attention, but then doesn’t actually do anything to justify your continued focus. Again: Spursy, that.

His first season at the club was spent so desperately trying to impress that he was perpetually offside, racking up a string of yellow cards for goals subsequently ruled out by VAR. When he did finally get a goal, it looked like he had rescued an improbable stoppage-time point from 3-0 down at Anfield, only for Spurs to then concede an even later heartbreaker.

Somehow, a striker who had made it to April without scoring a Premier League goal managed to locate a way to make scoring one even worse than not. Tell me any other club-player combination that could possibly pull that off.

His second season contained a brief spell where he scored goals and Spurs won games. It seems like an actual eternity ago that he was scoring twice in a 4-1 win over Newcastle, for instance. That’s partly because it is. It was in late 2023.

In January 2024, 15 months ago now, he scored his seventh goal in seven games as Spurs beat Brentford 3-2. It’s notable because that is the last time Richarlison scored for Spurs in a Premier League win. His seven Premier League goals since have earned Spurs precisely one point – and that was via a pair of goals a few days later at Everton.

In the last year, Richarlison has scored five Premier League goals in five Premier League games, and Spurs have lost the lot. Just imagine how he must feel about that, and you have in your mind the very essence of the Spurs experience.

Even at the bleakest of times, Spurs are never entirely without hope. That’s the cruellest part of it all, in many ways. Look at them now. They are apparently actively trying to finish 17th in the Premier League, yet find themselves three tantalising matches away from ending English football’s most talked about if far from longest trophy drought.

It makes no sense that this has happened, but yet it also makes perfect sense. Because Spurs. Because Richarlison.

One of the reasons we like Richarlison so very much is that he is a player whose effort can never be doubted. There are few keener exponents of tearing about desperately trying to make things happen while giving the distinct impression of not really knowing how or why.

He is, when you think about it, a player apparently custom-built for desperate moments and thus futile consolation goals. And that perhaps explains why it feels like every single one of his Tottenham goals has been to halve the deficit in the 87th minute.

And recently, that is barely an exaggeration. This is a striker who has, somehow, scored in four of his last five Premier League appearances. Which is good. Every one of those goals has arrived in a mortifying Tottenham defeat. Which is bad. Everton, Leicester, Wolves, Forest. That’s three of the bottom eight, and a Forest team that sufferballed Spurs into oblivion in a manner everyone apart from Ange Postecoglou fully expected.

Three of those four goals halved Spurs’ deficits in the 92nd, 85th, and 87th minutes. Needless to say, no late equaliser was found.

The fourth was a first-half opener against Leicester which appears off brand yet only serves to prove the point harder than ever. Here is a player and club whose freak matches so seamlessly, so flawlessly, that this goal broke the world so much it caused a Leicester team that had lost its previous seven games – and would go on to lose its next eight without scoring a single goal – to score two in five minutes at the start of the second half.

That, surely, is the clearest sign of Richarlison’s ungodly power to amplify already critical levels of Spursiness to even greater hilarious and terrifying heights. It is, frankly, a gift that should not be necessary. It is perhaps even unwise. Who knows what grave irreparable damage it may be causing to have such a ridiculous player and such a ridiculous club operating at these new and unexplored edges of the nonsense universe.

What we do know is that his now surely inevitable winning goal in Bilbao next month is going to hit like crack.

Tottenham have added Burnley boss Scott Parker to their shortlist to replace Ange Postecoglou at the end of the season, according to reports.

Spurs are having a nightmare season in the Premier League with Postecoglou’s side now 16th in the Premier League table and just one point ahead of 18th-placed West Ham.

Their 2-1 loss to Nottingham Forest on Monday was their fifth defeats in their last seven Premier League matches with Tottenham losing their 18th match in 33 games.

There were already rumours that Postecoglou could face the sack before the end of the season but a report in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday night revealed that Postecoglou ‘is heading towards the Tottenham Hotspur exit whether his team win the Europa League or not.’

The report added:

‘Tottenham face Norwegian club Bodo/Glimt in the semi-finals of the Europa League and the Australian could be sacked if his side fail to progress or lose in the final against either Athletic Bilbao or Manchester United.

‘Lifting the trophy and maintaining his record of winning silverware in his second season at clubs would give Postecoglou the opportunity to leave – possibly mutually – with his head held high and having delivered on his promises of changing the playing style and achieving success.’

READ: Who will be the next manager of Tottenham after Ange Postecoglou?

And now the Daily Mail, who have a similar story to the Telegraph, have put forward some names as potential options should Tottenham decide to sack Postecoglou.

The report claims that Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola and Fulham’s Marco Silva ‘would be among the leading candidates as a replacement’, while, in a shock revelation, claim that Parker – who has just won promotion back to the Premier League with Burnley – ‘has admirers within the club’.

On Parker, the Daily Mail adds: ‘Parker played for Spurs, was well-liked by supporters and also coached within the club’s academy set-up.’

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Senior football writer for ESPN James Olley has previously put forward Fulham boss Silva as a good replacement for Postecoglou with Chelsea also linked in the past.

“I think Marco Silva is another interesting option,” Olley said.

“I think that he would leave Fulham. I think he was quite keen to go to Chelsea, had they made a concerted effort to appoint him in the past.

“So I think he’s ambitious Silva. I think, obviously Fulham, I’m sure, would fight tooth and nail to keep him, but I can see a scenario where Marco Silva certainly courts some interest if there’s a possibility of that.”

Ange Postecoglou is expected to leave his role as Tottenham Hotspur head coach even if he guides the club to Europa League glory, according to Matt Law.

Postecoglou joined the Premier League club from Celtic ahead of the 2023/24 season.

His Spurs side started his debut campaign fantastically well and despite early talk of a title challenge, they finished fifth and failed to qualify for the Champions League.

This season has been a disaster – well, it has been a disaster since the start of 2024 really.

Spurs have had plenty of injuries this season but there is no excuse for being 16th in the Premier League with a ridiculous 18 defeats from 33 matches.

The fact Postecoglou is still in a job is baffling but Daniel Levy has decided to keep the faith, presumably because the club are still in the Europa League.

Spurs are now in the semi-final of the competition and have a favourable tie against Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt, with Manchester United and Athletic Bilbao on the other side of the draw.

Considering being in the competition has kept Postecoglou in a job, it felt like winning it would be enough to see the Australian stay at the club for 2025/26.

However, it looks like Spurs will part ways with Big Ange even if they win this season’s Europa League.

This is according to Telegraph Sport journalist Matt Law, who says Postecoglou ‘is heading towards the Tottenham Hotspur exit whether his team win the Europa League or not.

This report comes just a day after Spurs suffered a 2-1 Premier League to Nottingham Forest – their 18th league defeat of a miserable Premier League campaign.

Law claims Postecoglou ‘could be sacked’ if his side lose to Bodo/Glimt or beat them and then lose to Bilbao or Man United in the final, though winning the competition could see him depart ‘either through being dismissed or mutually’.

Postecoglou also led Spurs to the semi-final of the Carabao Cup this term and essentially promised a trophy in his second year in north London.

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He has also recently insisted that he has “no idea” whether he will be in charge next season.

Spurs have not won a trophy since the 2008 League Cup under Juande Ramos, who was sacked eight months after their most recent triumph.

Postecoglou’s chances of staying are also being hindered by the summer departure of a ‘key ally and biggest supporter’, chief football officer, Scott Munn.

Should Postecoglou depart, Spurs will likely pursue Fulham’s Marco Silva or Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola, the report adds.

The maths isn’t mathsing for TNT Sports, while The Sun are now quoting the voices in their heads and the Daily Express suffers death by thesaurus.

Route 66

Genuinely quite an impressive effort to make Tottenham and Man United’s Premier League seasons look even worse than they actually are, so hats off to TNT Sports‘ social team for managing it with this post on hate-fillled cesspit X.com – formerly hate-filled cesspit twitter.com – which somehow stayed defiantly, wrongly alive for very nearly an hour before grudgingly accepting its inevitable ‘Hmm…this page doesn’t exist’ fate and the heartbreaking loss of all that sweet, sweet engagement.

Arsenal (66) currently have more league points than Tottenham and Man United combined this season (65).

As all the many, many replies and quotes that weren’t ignoring the maths and going straight for ‘Worra trophy’ pointed out: high-flying superclubs Spurs and Man United actually have a whopping great 75 points between them this season, meaning it is in fact only Liverpool who can boast more points than the pair of them combined.

And thus Spurs and Man United win, in the most minor way possible.

Sway of The Sun

No great shock that Manchester United would quite like to sign Matheus Cunha, and we’re not even going to get too cross about everyone gleefully drawing their own conclusions from his little tunnel chat with Ruben Amorim at Old Trafford at the weekend.

But one fight we refuse to give up despite having long been lost is the quaint idea that quote marks mean someone somewhere is being quoted. And so to The Sun and this headline.

Man Utd close in on Matheus Cunha transfer with £62.5m Wolves star ‘swayed’ after Ruben Amorim tunnel chat

The word swayed appears absolutely nowhere else at any point in the story. Not even in a picture caption. They are not even quoting themselves this time. Just a complete and utter cheat to hint at some statement or other indicator of authority that simply does not exist.

Killer instinct

Overwrought headline of the day honours go to the Express for this entirely calm and rational assessment of a manager serving a one-match touchline ban.

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca hit with killer setback as top five twist emerges

Truly, if Chelsea do miss out on the Champions League we will all remember where we were when the news broke of Maresca’s killer one-match touchline ban. Mediawatch is also drawn uncomfortably to the following paragraph early in the story, because we simply refuse to believe it was written by a human.

‘The moment turned tumultuous when referee Anthony Taylor booked Maresca as the Chelsea coach and his team celebrated on the pitch post-Neto’s goal, which sealed a thrilling comeback at Craven Cottage. Tyrique George had equalised with his first Premier League goal 10 minutes before Neto secured the victory in the 93rd minute.’

‘The moment turned tumultuous’? And ‘celebrated on the pitch post-Neto’s goal’? Mediawatch has long enjoyed the sheer absurdity of tabloidese and the fact no actual real people ever talk anything like the way football journalists write, but this feels like a significant step beyond even the usual shite like ‘the Madrid-based schemer’ or ‘wantaway 18-goal frontman’.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Yet, with the pandemonium in southwest London, Chelsea now eye the possibility of ascending to third place when they tackle Everton, should other results swing their way, in what has become the latest twist in the race for the top 5 positions.

It could, we suppose, be nothing more than a chronically insecure writer armed with a thesaurus and just changing every fifth word to something that sounds grander. But our queasy gut tells us this just has to be lazy AI slop, doesn’t it? And with that Mediawatch once again feels the icy breath and long, bony fingers of death upon its shoulder.

Axe throwing

Plenty of the usual suspects having slightly mischievous fun with the brief VAR outage during Tottenham v Nottingham Forest last night, which amounted to eight minutes and zero incidents before it was back up and running.

But with any chance to have a pop at VAR a potential click-mine of hefty proportions, there will always be those keen to push their luck just a bit too far.

And today that prize goes to talkSPORT. Like so many of the decisions VAR likes to make hard and fast judgment on, it is really entirely subjective just how much artistic licence you allow in these situations.

Mediawatch would contend, though, that this headline is more than a Chris Wood nipple offside.

VAR axed midway through Tottenham’s clash with Nottingham Forest due to bizarre mix-up

It wasn’t ‘axed’, it was temporarily out of use. And it wasn’t a bizarre mix-up, it was a fire alarm.

At the risk of going full tinfoil hat, Mediawatch would contend that there wouldn’t be this kind of headline about this had there not been a borderline VAR call earlier in the match, one that inevitably imbues ‘axed’ and ‘bizarre mix-up’ with weight the actual story simply cannot carry alone.

Tottenham are “looking at higher-profile managers” than Brentford boss Thomas Frank if they sack Ange Postecoglou, according to a former Spurs scout.

Postecoglou has had a terrible season in charge of Tottenham – who lost 2-1 at home to Nottingham Forest last night – with his side currently 16th in the Premier League table heading into their final five matches.

Reports have previously claimed that Postecoglou could face the sack if Spurs are knocked out of Europe with the Australian guiding them to the semi-finals of the Europa League.

A trophy win would be a huge deal for Tottenham, who have not won any silverware since Juande Ramos lifted the League Cup in 2008, but the awful performances and results in the Premier League are unlikely to be overlooked.

It feels likely that Postecoglou will not be at Tottenham next season and there are already rumours building about who could replace him ahead of the 2025/26 campaign.

Thomas Frank, who has done an oustanding job at Brentford, has been linked with a potential move to north London but former Tottenham and Man Utd scout Mick Brown insists Spurs are looking at big-name managers.

Brown told Football Insider: “There’s no doubt Frank has done a fantastic job at Brentford. But’s a completely different job to managing Tottenham Hotspur.

“His job at Brentford cannot be questioned, he’s done better than many others would have, and everybody I speak to has a lot of respect and admiration for him.

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“The issue is, Tottenham have had about 15 well-respected managers who have done jobs elsewhere.

“I think they’re looking at higher-profile managers to come in and transform them into a winning outfit.

“I don’t know whether Frank meets that star status they’re looking for.

“He’s a very intelligent and talented manager who has done very well, so I don’t doubt he’ll be under consideration, but I wouldn’t expect him to be a leading candidate.”

Carlo Ancelotti’s future at Real Madrid is very uncertain and there are rumours that Bayer Leverkusen boss Xabi Alonso will replace him in the summer.

But Jamie O’Hara has rubbished claims that Ancelotti could succeed Postecoglou at Tottenham in the summer.

Responding to a caller on talkSPORT, O’Hara replied: “Are you having a wind up? Ancelotti? He’s going to get the Brazil job mate, what you talking about? Yeah [he went to Everton], he was on about £18m a year, that’s why he went there for half a season and he dipped as soon as Madrid phoned him.”

Tottenham Hotspur star Cristian Romero has delivered an honest admission on his future at the Premier League club amid reports linking him with an exit.

Romero and Spurs are enduring a disappointing season as they have spent most of the campaign in the bottom half of the Premier League. The 16th-placed outfit suffered their 18th loss of the season against Nottingham Forest on Monday night.

Injuries have ravaged Tottenham this season and Romero has missed a significant portion of this campaign with hamstring and toe injuries.

The Argentina international is being eased back into the fold ahead of Tottenham’s Europa League final against Bodo-Glimt and he was taken off at half-time against Forest.

Romano has been heavily linked with a potential exit from Spurs in recent months, with it claimed that ‘have to accept’ his exit on one condition. Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid are among the clubs linked with the centre-back.

When asked about his future, Romero revealed the “truth” and commented on his potential next move.

“I try, above all things, to always live day to day,” Romero said.

READ: Postecoglou must be sick at the thought of contemptible Tottenham star failing upwards

“There are almost two months left of the season, and I want to perform at my best and try to finish it in the best way possible.

“We are in the semi-final of the Europa League, which is an important step for the club after so many years that it has not reached this stage.

“The truth is that I have not spoken with my agent yet, but I am willing to do anything.

“My focus is always on growing and looking for new places to continue developing, but I don’t want to talk about that yet because there are a few months left to finish the season.”

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He added: “After this, we’ll see. I haven’t spoken to my agent yet, but I’m willing to do anything.

“My focus is on growing, but I don’t want to talk about that. I’d love to play in the Spanish league. I’d love to compete in all the top leagues.”

Explaining why Romero and Micky van Ven were subbed at half-time against Nottm Forest, Postecoglou said: “I thought they needed to play some minutes tonight because it becomes 10 days leading into Liverpool.

“With both of them we’ve got them in a really good place physically now and I just want to keep them ticking over.

“I felt that there was no need to play more than 45 minutes today and we needed to get a couple of others game time.

“I just felt that if it was Sunday we probably wouldn’t have played them, but on a Monday, especially for Micky because he’s been playing just one game a week, we need to build him up because he’s in a really good place at the moment so I thought 45 minutes for both of them would be beneficial.”