Tottenham in talks with Gennaro Gattuso after pulling out of Paulo Fonseca appointment

Tottenham Hotspur have dramatically pulled out of their move to make Paulo Fonseca the club’s new head coach at the last minute and are in talks to hire Gennaro Gattuso.

Fonseca had verbally agreed to take over at Tottenham and had travelled to Ukraine, where his wife is from, with the expectation of being appointed next week. Sources said the Portuguese coach has been left “shocked and very disappointed” by Spurs shock decision.

Spurs pulled the plug on the planned appointment after deciding to move for Gattuso who, earlier in the day, quit as Fiorentina coach just 22 days after taking over because of a row over signings.

The former Italian midfielder is represented by the agent Jorge Mendes who will now forge a powerful alliance with Spurs’ new managing director of football Fabio Paratici. The move would certainly strengthen Mendes’ relationship and influence at Spurs.

It is believed finances were not to blame over Spurs’ shock decision to turn away from Fonseca, having also seen talks with Antonio Conte break down and interest in re-appointing Mauricio Pochettino lead to nothing.

A source said that Spurs had simply decided to go “for a different type of coach” than Fonseca who recently left Roma where he has been replaced by Jose Mourinho who, of course, was sacked by Spurs.

Gattuso, 43, has had an itinerant and unconvincing coach career, which started at the Swiss club Sion and has included a stint in Greece and at five Italian clubs. Most recently he was at Napoli and has been at no club for more than two years and was also linked to the Juventus job when Paratici was there.

It simply appears that Gattuso’s suddenly availability may have led to Spurs' dramatic change of heart over Fonseca who it had appeared to be Paratici’s choice. But maybe that was because Gattuso was unavailable at that time.

If Gattuso is hired by Spurs the incident in which he clashed with the club’s then assistant coach Joe Jordan will be played over and over. It occurred during a Champions League last-16 tie with Milan in 2011, who Gattuso was playing for at the time, with the former midfielder receiving a four-match ban after headbutting Jordan as tempers flared at full-time.

“I was nervous,” Gattuso later said. “We were both speaking Scottish, something I learned when I played in his home city of Glasgow, but I can’t tell you what we said.” He has continued to be a fiery character as a coach.