So Tim Sherwood is the new permanent Head Coach at Spurs. It wasn’t much of a surprise that he was given the job, with the lack of obvious candidates available to step in at such short notice. What is more surprising is that he has been given the position on a permanent basis, or at least on an 18 month contract.

This is in fact a shrewd move by Daniel Levy. Ideally he would have liked time to identify possible coaches and to wait for them to become available. However, if he had kept Sherwood as an interim coach or just given him a contract to the end of the season this would have added to the uncertainty and made him a lame duck before he had even begun.

By appointing him on an 18 month contract he gives the illusion that Sherwood has his full trust. Now, maybe he does and maybe Sherwood will turn out to be a success, this is the potential upside. The main thing is the potential downside is fairly limited.

Spurs are unlikely to get relegated. If the team doesn’t perform or a better option becomes available in the summer, then Levy can just remove Sherwood regardless of the contract.

The only meaning left in the length of football manager contracts is how much money they cost to pay off when the manager gets sacked. As such the salary is also key. It can be assumed that Sherwood is on a relatively low wage because of his lack of experience, so paying him for 18 months is probably still relatively cheap especially when compared with the salaries that would be requested by some of the bigger names that have been linked with the job.