TENHAM HOTSPUR
Nuno’s zombies have left him for dead
DEAD men walk at this time of year – and Nuno Espirito Santo already looks like one of them.
The Spurs boss questioned the commitment of some of his players before they faced a Manchester United team still reeling from their 5-0 demolition by Liverpool.
But they responded like a team no longer listening to their manager, giving an absolutely lifeless performance in which they failed to manage a single shot on target on Saturday night.
United passed on the mantle of crisis club with goals from Cristiano Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani and Marcus Rashford – and Tottenham picked it up all too enthusiastically.
Long-running TV horror show The Walking Dead may be on a mid-season break but there were plenty of zombies shuffling around north London and they were all wearing Spurs shirts.
It is five defeats in seven now since Tottenham led the Premier League in August and Nuno had just been named manager of the month.
And you could see the same haunted look on his face as he stood helplessly on the sidelines being booed by his own fans that Jose Mourinho once wore days before the end.
Nuno knows. It’s only a matter of time now.
The fact that there is no obvious contender to replace him probably means he will limp on for a while.
But make no mistake, he looks like a dead man walking because he is.
This job is beyond him. It may be beyond all but the very best.
And let’s face it, Tottenham are not attracting the very best in the business.
If we learned anything from their epic, farcical search for Mourinho’s replacement in the close season and the amount of big-name bosses who didn’t fancy it, we learned that.
Chairman Daniel Levy is not stupid. Nuno was at best his fifth choice for the job. And it’s clear he just isn’t up to it.
Nuno looks like a man paralysed by fear, desperately trying not to lose games when he should be trying to win them.
His players are not playing for him, his instructions are not being carried out, and he doesn’t seem to have any answers.
But when Spurs fans sang for someone to go at the weekend, it wasn’t Nuno’s name they chanted but Levy’s.
At least if he gets started now on the search for Tottenham’s next manager, he might be finished in time for the end of the January transfer window.
But how do you fix a team whose star player made it crystal clear he doesn’t want to be at the club any more?
Yes, it’s time to talk about Harry Kane.
Hopeless again, he hasn’t scored in eight of the nine Premier League games he’s played this season.
And while it’s true he has had very little service, he is a shadow of his former self.
In the past, when Kane was struggling or starved of service like this, he would still produce the odd moment of world-class creativity or finishing to change a game.
Not now. On the only two occasions he was away and in a good position, he made such a mess of it that Spurs fans eventually booed him.
Yes, that’s right. Harry Kane was booed by Tottenham fans. Tottenham fans who have chanted for years about how he’s one of their own.
He’s not any more. He’s the millionaire who tried and failed to force his way out of the club, who suddenly doesn’t look capable of shooting his way out of a paper bag.
Levy should have taken the money on offer from Manchester City, because this is not the Harry Kane Spurs need.
And the decision not to sell him to the champions may just go down as one of the worst the club has ever made.