Dry your eyes Tottenham Hotspur, and re-adjust your sights West Ham United: Xabi Alonso is staying at Bayer Leverkusen. He has confirmed he will be at the Bundesliga team until the end of the next season, which is consistent with his measured approach of building a coaching CV, step by step.
And it’s beginning to look quite the CV. There is a danger in overestimating articulate players, believing they will make natural managers. The coaches’ graveyard is littered with media-friendly ex pros, their glittering playing careers undone by the trials and tribulations of managing an actual dressing room full of footballers less-talented than yourself.