Tottenham offer Tim Sherwood his old job back as they prepare to bring in new manager

Spurs want Sherwood back in his previous position for the next term

Emmanuel Adebayor of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates scoring his second goal against Sunderland by saluting manager Tim Sherwood (GETTY IMAGES)

Tottenham Hotspur want Tim Sherwood to return to his role as the club’s technical coordinator, overseeing the development of young players, when they appoint a new manager in the summer.

Sherwood, 45, will not be able to see out the final 12 months of his contract as “head coach”, signed in December after the departure of Andre Villas-Boas. The current Netherlands coach, Louis Van Gaal, is the most likely candidate to replace him. Sherwood has always said that he does not wish to return to his former job, and that viewpoint is not thought to have changed.

As of today there was no announcement yet from the club that their current head coach has only five games left in the role, although that is indisputably the case. The chairman, Daniel Levy, is on holiday with his family in the United States and the club are hopeful that they can simply muddle through to the end of the season without having to clarify Sherwood’s future.

The former Spurs midfielder was told of his fate at a meeting with Levy and the club’s director of football, Franco Baldini, on Monday. Levy made it clear that Sherwood would not be in charge beyond the final game of the season against Aston Villa on 11 May and all that remains to be done now is reach settlement on the final 12 months of Sherwood’s contract. It is unlikely that coach Les Ferdinand will stay at the club either.

Levy wants to keep Sherwood on as the head of the club’s academy, where he made sweeping changes after taking over as technical coordinator in 2009. Before Sherwood’s arrival the club did little in the way of loans for young players’ development and certainly made little money from sales of those that they had produced, or loan fees.

Since then, Spurs have sold Steven Caulker to Cardiff City for £11m, Jake Livermore is expected to leave this summer on a permanent deal worth around £8m and they have also sold Simon Dawkins, whom the club almost released at one point, to Derby County for £500,000. The club have also earned money from loan fees, including Kyle Walker’s spell at Villa in 2011.

Spurs finished Monday’s 5-1 defeat of Sunderland with four former academy players on the pitch: Harry Kane, Andros Townsend, Danny Rose and Milos Veljkovic. It is unclear how Spurs will fill the role of technical coordinator after Sherwood’s departure to make way for a new manager.