'One question' - Tim Sherwood issues response to Tottenham interim links

Tim Sherwood has explained what his position will be if Tottenham come to him with a job offer before the end of the season. Spurs still don’t seem to be convinced by current interim boss Igor Tudor, and that will come as no surprise given he has only managed one point during his time in charge so far.

Spurs are still one point above the relegation zone, and it’s far from a certainty that they will avoid playing Championship football next season.

If Tottenham drop into the relegation zone, they may well pull the trigger on Tudor and look to appoint an emergency manager who can lift spirits sufficiently to get them out and away from the bottom three.

Options are limited because most long-term candidates either have jobs or will want to wait to see if Tottenham are relegated before taking the job. That means the conversation could turn to hiring former boss Sherwood, who has a proven past of lifting spirits at Spurs and achieving good results.

Sherwood hasn’t been working for some time, at least not as a manager, and it seems he has some resentment over why Spurs turned to Tudor first in what was a strange appointment.

Sherwood told NewBetting Offers: “I’d have one question for Tottenham if they offered me the job, I’d say why didn’t you ask me a month ago? Why didn’t you ask me when there were three winnable games and still a chance in the Champions League?

“All right, it’s never a free hit when you’re playing in a North London Derby. It was always going to be difficult, wasn’t it? But you need to give the fans some encouragement and show something in that game. You showed nothing, absolutely nothing.

“Then you’ve got two very winnable games against Fulham and Crystal Palace. So now, whoever goes in now has an even tougher task. Because this job is not about tactics. It’s common sense.

“You play players in the correct positions where they’re accustomed to playing and you get the best out of them. And you stick to the system, you get it organised. So everyone knows their job. But this job is a man-management job now. Man-management doesn’t happen overnight.

“You need time around the players to get to know them, look them in the eye, see who’s fighting for you, which ones are going in the right direction. You’ve got less time now.

“A month ago, when he was coming in, or three weeks ago, you had that time, and then you’ve gone into two winnable games, three if you count the North London Derby. So now it’s an even more difficult task than when he went in, it’s double difficult. The guy’s meant to be a firefighter who changes fortunes around very, very quickly. Well, he hasn’t done that.

“So what are they going to do about it? I don’t know who’s making the decisions. If I knew that, I could second-guess a little bit better. And I don’t know who the options are for them to come in and do this job. But I’ll tell you what, no one’s got a magic wand.

“No one would come in there with a magic wand and just say, ‘You know what, all of you players have been looking very poor or average at best. I’ll wave this around and all of you will turn Tottenham into world-beaters and we’re going to run and win six games on the spin.’ That ain’t going to happen. It’s going to go right to the wire.”