Ryan Mason insists Tottenham must avoid ‘compensating’ as manager search continues
yan Mason says Tottenham’s new permanent manager must be a good fit for the club and warned against “trying to make people fit in and compensating”.
Mason oversaw what is expected to be his final game as head coach as Spurs relegated sorry Leeds with a 4-1 win at Elland Road, inspired by Harry Kane.
The 31-year-old has taken charge of the final six matches of the campaign after the sacking of Antonio Conte and the brief interregnum of the Italian’s assistant, Cristian Stellini. Like Jose Mourinho before him, Conte arrived at Spurs as a proven winner but did not always feel like a good match for the club.
“I think there’s some huge decisions to make for the football club,” Mason said at Elland Road.
“First of all it’s to understand who we want to be and where we want to go going forward. Then it’s realising who fits that, members of staff and also players as well. It’s an important few weeks now and hopefully we make the right decisions.
“We probably need to understand where we want to go and who we want to be and that’s the most important thing.
“Once you decide that then you can employ the people that fit that and then I think everyone is quite clear on the direction we would like to go.
“We have quite a big squad. Whoever is in charge in pre-season, there are a lot of players and decisions to make. Ultimately I think we need to get back to who we want to be, who our fans want us to be and then going forward we will have better results on a more consistent basis.”
Asked if Spurs should be aiming to be among the ‘best’ in future, Mason added: “I don’t know what people think the best is because the best isn’t always necessarily the best option. The most important thing for any football club in world football is to have an identity, know who you are and who you want to be and stick to that.
“Then I think you can employ people along the way, people who fit into something as opposed to trying to make people fit into something and compensating. I don’t think that works. That’s the key decision. That’s the big decision and that’s the commitment that I think we need to make.”
Kane scored twice and set up Pedro Porro as Spurs brushed aside sorry Leeds, with Lucas Moura added a wonderful individual goal in stoppage-time on his final appearance for the club.
“I think he probably doesn’t get the appreciation he should,” Mason said of Kane, who scored 30 League goals this season.
Harry Kane’s brace against Leeds took him to 30 Premier League goals for the season
/ Getty Images“The goals yes, outstanding, a 30-goal season in the Premier League is incredible but also his overall performances are just outstanding and I also think as well to go through what happened in the World Cup, from a mental point of view, to come back and do what he’s done for the past four or five months, I think it speaks volumes for the player and the person.”
But Spurs missed out on a place in the Europa Conference League after Aston Villa beat Brighton at home to clinch 7th place.
“Obviously the bigger picture is disappointment over how the season has gone as a whole because we’ve finished outside of Europe for the first time in a long time,” Mason said. “We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Asked about his own future, Mason added: “When I go on my summer holidays I would hope and expect that everyone inside of our training ground knows who I am, who my team are and who we stand for. The hope and expectation is that you guys and everyone else sees that too. I know we’ve done a great job. I really do.
“The circumstances were very difficult. I think anyone in the world coming into this situation for six games coming off the back of what had happened and the position we were in was going to find it tough. Also if you add into that being on an interim basis, where there’s uncertainty it makes it even tougher.
“But we’ve stuck to what we believe in, we’ve transitioned a little bit I believe in a short space of time and the players have responded, they’ve given us everything and ultimately that’s all I can ask.”
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