Following yesterday's 5-0 home capitulation against Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur manager Andre Villas-Boas finds himself without a job today. Apparently agreeing to leave "by mutual consent", Villas-Boas held crunch talks with Spurs' chairman Daniel Levy this morning and walked out relieved of his duties. Having sold Gareth Bale in the summer, Spurs spent over £100 million on seven new players in Paulinho, Roberto Soldado, Erik Lamela, Etienne Capoue, Nacer Chadli, Christian Eriksen and Vlad Chiriches but are yet to see the new team click. Although Spurs are still in the League Cup, FA Cup (which is yet to get underway for Premier League teams, of course) and the Europa League (having won all six of their group games, nonetheless), it is their league form which has instigated the decision to remove the Portuguese boss from his post. Spurs are currently seventh, meaning their season is by no means over, but the chairman and fans obviously expected more after such a massive outlay on players that were meant to improve the squad as a whole - and results like the aforementioned defeat against Liverpool, a 3-0 home defeat to London rivals West Ham United and a 6-0 thrashing at Manchester City meant that Levy was left with no option but to part company with Villas-Boas. As a result, all the current talk is about who will replace Villas-Boas in the Spurs hot-seat. In this article, we take a look at five possible replacements for the departing manager at White Hart Lane...
Honourable Mention: Sir Alex Ferguson
This, of course, is nothing more than a mere pipe-dream (and it obviously won't happen) but, given Daniel Levy's audacity, you certainly wouldn't put it past him to approach the retired Sir Alex with an offer to spend the rest of this season picking Spurs up and assisting with the recruitment of a permanent new boss for next season. Anyway, on to the actual list...