Capello Quick-Fix Not in Struggling Spurs' Best Interests

When Fabio Capello was spotted in the White Hart Lane press box on Sunday it was always inevitable that, should Tottenham Hotspur lose to Liverpool, he would be tipped to replace under-fire manager Andre Villas-Boas in the event chairman Daniel Levy decided to make a coaching change.

Nevermind that the Italian had been at Stamford Bridge the day before and was working the pair of Premier League matches as part of a reporting assignment for Italian television; nevermind that, having guided Russia through European qualifying, he is less than six months away from a second successive trip to a World Cup finals.

When Spurs were thumped 5-0 in front of their own supporters, they created a black hole capable of sucking every manager within a certain radius of the ground into the rumour mill, and Capello’s presence in the media gantry made him closer than most.

That his friend and former assistant Franco Baldini is currently the club’s technical director only lends credence to what would otherwise be mere coincidence.

The bookies are all but convinced Capello will be succeeding Villas-Boas (Sky Bet has him 11/4 to follow the Portuguese; Michael Laudrup is 3/1, Tim Sherwood 10/1 and Guus Hiddink 12/1), and with Baldini in a position of power at Tottenham, it’s likely he will at least be approached about the vacancy.

But the 67-year-old, on big money with Russia and installed in a cozy job, has given no indication he’d fancy a switch back to club management, particularly with a World Cup so close on the horizon.

Of course, he could come in as an interim boss until the end of the season—a move that would no doubt be intended to salvage a campaign that currently has Spurs seventh in the English top flight and five points back of the fourth and final Champions League berth.

And with only a March FIFA date between now and May, it’s possibly a task he’d be able to juggle with his international responsibilities.

Chelsea, for example, won the European Cup with Roberto Di Matteo never shaking the interim tag, and over the past decade the Blues have shown that stability at the managerial position is hardly a precursor to success.

That said, Capello showed with both Real Madrid and England that his approach is hardly a modern one, especially where player management is concerned.

Despite winning La Liga in 2007, he was summarily dismissed after just a single season in his second stint at the Bernabeu (his first also ended after one campaign), and while the club claimed his style of football had made him a poor fit in the capital, it was his handling of some of Madrid’s more high-profile players that had as much to do with his exit as anything else.

While with England, his military camp-style administration of the Three Lions’ World Cup base in South Africa drew some ire, as did the way in which he revealed himself to be woefully out of touch regarding the John Terry captaincy.

If there is a plus side to a possible Capello regime at White Hart Lane, it’s perhaps in his organizational capabilities, which at this point would only be of benefit to a Spurs squad that couldn’t have looked more disjointed in both the Liverpool defeat and the 6-0 loss to Manchester City in late November.

Incidentally, Don Fabio’s analysis of Tottenham’s Italian performance, via Goal’s Carlo Garganese, was that a side with so much individual quality shouldn’t be as bad as what he saw.

That could be interpreted as a sign of intention to fix the problem, or simply a TV report he was already scheduled to provide.

The safest guess is it was likely the latter, and for Spurs that’s probably a good thing.