Pochettino: An Alternative to Capello, Hoddle Et Al for Tottenham?

There doesn't seem to be a middle ground with Andre Villas-Boas. It seemed you either thought he was a forward-thinking genius who did a great job despite losing three of his best players or a chump living off his brilliant season with Porto, the ultimate footballing emperor with his new clothes.

Still, those opinions are academic now, at least for a while, and Spurs have to find themselves a new manager. When a coach is sacked, the next man is often a reaction to the dismissed, the theory presumably being "Well, that didn't work, let's try something completely different."

Fabio Capello, Glenn Hoddle and Guus Hiddink are among the early betting favourites, and an experienced hand to follow a youngster would be an attractive option amid the relative chaos currently at White Hart Lane.

However, that theory should perhaps not apply to Spurs. Their director of football model, with Franco Baldini in charge of player recruitment, is partly designed to create more consistency, to move away from the wild lurches in approach and turnover in players that sacking a manager can bring.

Thus, it would seem logical that Spurs would bring in a coach with broadly similar ideas to Villas-Boas, but with a different voice or attitude.

One candidate currently a little further down the betting is Mauricio Pochettino. The Argentinean has only been at Southampton for a year, but he has already created quite an impression on the south coast. His quick, pressing style has helped lodge the Saints into the top half of the table, and while their current run of form isn't quite as impressive (no wins in the last five), they are still doing better than most hoped or predicted, and he has certainly justified the decision to remove Nigel Adkins in his favour last season.

Pochettino's success thus far has come with a team composition that is broadly similar to Tottenham's. He uses two solid central players to control the middle of the park (for Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama, read Sandro, Paulinho and/or Etienne Capoue), with attacking full-backs and a fluid forward line. He uses quick, dynamic players to create pressure high up the pitch and to attack, and in the likes of Erik Lamela, Andros Townsend, Lewis Holtby and Aaron Lennon, Spurs have all of those tools, so it perhaps would not take a particularly long time for Pochettino to adapt.

In addition, while Pochettino has been well backed in the transfer market, he has succeeded in getting the best out of many of his charges. Players like Jay Rodriguez and Adam Lallana, while obviously talented before he arrived, have flourished under him, and one of Villas-Boas' main problems seemed to be that he very much could not do this, with Lamela, Roberto Soldado et al struggling under his leadership.

There is of course the significant barrier of actually getting Pochettino to Spurs. Having only been at St. Mary's for a year, he might want to finish what he has started, while Nicola Cortese put his reputation on the line by appointing Pochettino in place of the popular Adkins, so he would not let his man go without a significant scrap, if at all.

Managers moving between Premier League clubs in the middle of the season is also a rarity, but this doesn't mean that Spurs should not consider him as an alternative to the old heads.

As it happens, Tottenham's next game is against Southampton. One wonders if Daniel Levy might pick up the phone before then.