Julian Nagelsmann remains the favourite to replace Antonio Conte at Spurs and the German would become the ninth Premier League coach to accomplish one feat.
With Nagelsmann registering prominently on the Spurs radar, the 35-year-old would be given the rare Premier League task of managing a player older than him: 36-year-old captain Hugo Lloris.
It is rare but absolutely not unique. One former Spurs head coach has even done it at a couple of clubs…
Glenn Hoddle (Chelsea)
Needing to permanently replace Ian Porterfield, the first Premier League manager ever to suffer the ignominy of being sacked, Chelsea glanced down the English football pyramid in summer 1993 to find Swindon Town, 16 places below them, being guided to promotion by a 36-year-old Glenn Hoddle.
The revolutionary and progressive England international player-manager nevertheless needed some hard-headed, experienced British grit in his backline. Hoddle inherited Mal Donaghy, holder of a European Cup Winners’ Cup with Man Utd in 1991, with the Northern Irishman a defensive regular in the 1993/94 season.
Born a fortnight or so before future Spurs boss Hoddle, Donaghy retired at the end of that campaign. Graham Rix, four days younger than the manager, was brought in as a coach and also made a brief substitute appearance in May 1995.
Gianluca Vialli (Chelsea)
Chelsea seemed to develop something of a taste for fielding players younger than the manager in the 1990s. While Ruud Gullit never picked anyone born before him, Gianluca Vialli did not mind leaning on such individuals as on-pitch lieutenants.
Mark Hughes paid tribute to “the most beautiful human in terms of his ability to make people feel comfortable in his presence” upon Vialli’s passing in January. Steve Clarke described his former teammate and manager as “a pleasure to play alongside and an even greater pleasure to have known”. The pair were eight months and almost a year older than the Italian respectively.
Back-up keeper Kevin Hitchcock, who also worked with Vialli as a coach at Watford, was another who played under him as an elder statesmen.
Paul Jewell (Bradford)
“I did not find out I was playing until 2.30pm. I had a good laugh and enjoyed it. I knew I had nothing to lose,” was an example of the sort of wisdom Neville Southall had developed by the time of the last Premier League appearance of his career in March 2000. The 41-year-old joined Bradford on a non-contract basis in the midst of a goalkeeping…
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