‘They’ve been insistent’: Journalist shares what people close to Nagelsmann have been saying about Spurs

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Julian Nagelsmann is not going to be the new manager of Tottenham Hotspur.

Reports emerged on Friday stating that Spurs have pulled out in talks with Nagelsmann, but according to Miguel Delaney, Nagelsmann had his own reservations about Tottenham.

Indeed, speaking on the Sky Sports Back Pages Podcast, Delaney says that Nagelsmann’s camp had been saying for weeks that it would take a very special pitch from Tottenham for him to actually accept the role as Spurs’ new manager.

Nagelsmann needed a lot of convincing

Delaney shared what he’s heard from Nagelsmann’s camp.

“It’s not a surprise that Nagelsmann won’t be the next Tottenham manager, but in terms of how we got here, that leads to a few questions. There are shades of when he pulled out of the Chelsea race in that there was word that filtered out to the media, and Nagelsmann claimed he wasn’t interested and then Chelsea’s stance was that he was only one option considered,” Delaney said.

“Spurs are saying that it hasn’t gotten that far, but on the other side, if you speak to people close to Nagelsmann over the past few weeks, they’ve been pretty insistent that it would have taken a lot for Spurs to get him. The feeling was a few weeks ago that Levy would go in strong for a name like Nagelsmann, he seemed to tick so many boxes, but we heard throughout that that he would take a lot of convincing and a lot of persuading.”

Not an option

Spurs may have pulled out of the race to hire Nagelsmann as Antonio Conte’s replacement, but, by the sounds of things, they probably wouldn’t have been able to get Nagelsmann anyway.

Indeed, with no Sporting Director, a failing squad and a star player who is likely to leave within the next 12 months, it’s fair to say that Spurs probably couldn’t have put together a pitch that would’ve convinced a former Bayern Munich manager that a move to north London would be in his best interests.

Nagelsmann isn’t in the running for the Spurs job, but he probably doesn’t feel as though he’s missed out too much.