Tottenham Hotspur and a sense of timing rarely go hand in hand. If there's a way to shoot themselves in the foot then the north London club will invariably find it.
As if there wasn't enough pressure on Ryan Mason to lead Spurs to a victory at Aston Villa on Saturday if he was to stand any chance of getting the head coach gig permanently, so the club dumped a truckload more on him with their activities on Friday evening.
For less than 24 hours before a match that could define their European fate, news emerged from inside Tottenham with the club insisting that they had not met with Julian Nagelsmann despite their respect for him and did not intend to as he was not a candidate for them right now.
For Tottenham fans it made no sense. For Spurs, it was a misguided attempt to get ahead of the curve, to shape the narrative before the German's camp could do the same in their favour. The north London side would have seen what happened at Chelsea the previous month with differing views from both parties over why Nagelsmann suddenly was no longer in the running for that job at Stamford Bridge.
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Of course Tottenham made contact with Nagelsmann's people to sound out his interest in the project.
The club is looking for a project manager to rebuild them, one who wants to be in it for the long haul. The young German ticked that box, ticked the attacking football box and also ticked the big name box of a manager who would excite the fans.
Nagelsmann would also have brought a modern style of football not seen in recent years at the north London club so to not at least make an enquiry as to his feelings about the job would have been negligent.
He was one of the most obvious candidates for the job so for Tottenham to make it sound like they had no interest in Nagelsmann only reflected poorly on their judgement when there has clearly been interest over the years.
This was the third time they had considered his appointment - the first time before appointing Jose Mourinho and the second before Nagelsmann went to Bayern and they then turned to Nuno Espirito Santo.
Fast forward to 2023 and the interest did not progress to the formal interview stage. While Spurs strongly refute suggestions that Nagelsmann turned them down - which of course they would as they would no doubt say they technically did not offer him the job - something clearly happened during the conversations with his camp that ended any progress dead in its tracks.
It might be that Tottenham decided the German was not the right man for the current rebuild - there have been questions about his man-management in his homeland - although it's difficult to understand why that decision would only be arrived at almost two months after Conte left the club. Also it would have to be asked why it was not worth at least a proper interview to fully discover Nagelsmann's vision for Spurs if he - as they say - did not turn them down?
That's why people will doubt this sudden move. From the outside Spurs needed Nagelsmann more than the German needed them, so the attempt to paint this as a 'nah, we have more suitable candidates' situation fell flat on its face regardless of however things actually went down.
Either way Tottenham would end up looking incompetent for not considering such a strong candidate or unambitious for being rejected by him.
It evoked memories of the north London club's dealings with Antonio Conte in the summer of 2021. Those talks broke down with those around the Italian claiming he wasn't convinced about the club's ambition and those on Tottenham's side saying his demands were unrealistic and risky.
Yet three months later Daniel Levy went back to Conte cap in hand to ask him to come to Tottenham and the Italian, with nothing better on the table, compromised his views to get back in the game. It was a compromise that was never going to last.
Now Spurs find themselves in even more of a mess than they were back then in 2021. They have no head coach of either their men's or women's team, no director of football, a star player approaching the final year of his contract, a captain potentially on the way out and no discernible leadership at the top of a club that seems to be drifting aimlessly in the football ocean.
To attempt to shape the narrative of the Nagelsmann situation blew up in their face and created ridicule across social media and an atmosphere among the hardcore travelling Tottenham fans who had clearly lost their patience.
Spurs' travelling supporters are always there for the team and once again on Saturday they could often be heard over the 40,000 or so Aston Villa fans with their chants.
Unfortunately for Levy, he was the subject of many of them. For within just 15 seconds of kick-off the Tottenham fans were singing 'We want Levy out' and 'Daniel Levy get out of our club'. They did so again twice in the first half and started up again within moments of the second half opening and it was a familiar refrain until the end of the game.
The Spurs chairman is not believed to have been in attendance at Villa Park but it was another display of dissatisfaction with the state of the club he runs and it came from those who spend the most to follow Tottenham everywhere.
The Nagelsmann news piled the pressure on Ryan Mason to prove that he could be the in-house solution to Tottenham's problems.
It was not fair on the 31-year-old, a young coach who has plenty of potential but so little time in which to make any real impact on a team that is deeply rooted in the mess that came before him. Mason is trying to polish what he has inherited, a mess borne from years of disjointed decision-making and an inability to maintain a clear approach from those above.
There was a certain sadness to his post-match press conference, a man who Spurs have thrown to the wolves in both of his spells as the face trying to explain the chaos being wreaked behind him.
When asked whether this latest defeat made him doubt his desire to become Tottenham manager, he said: "Absolutely not. I've remained consistent. I believe we're doing a good job in terms of what we're trying to create.
"I understand we don't have a huge amount of time to change too much, and we've seen this kind of thing too many times this season - going a goal down early and making it difficult for ourselves.
"But we understand we do have two important games, and it's still in our hands what we want to achieve. We have to learn and be better for next week because we've got another difficult game."
Yet Mason looked like a man who had realised his dream of managing his boyhood club has likely been snuffed out for now. He needed to win every match he had to at least throw his hat into the ring.
Instead Spurs conceded within eight minutes for the third away game in a row and have now not won a single game on the road in the Premier League since January and even worse have not triumphed outside London in the competition since October. It's an embarrassing showcase for their lack of mental strength in hostile atmospheres.
"Many different things contribute to that, but ultimately it's not good enough for a club this size.," said Mason. "You can't expect to be competing where we want to compete and have that sort of record. So that needs to improve. That needs to be a collective, that needs to be driven from all of us. It isn't a good enough stat and it needs to change."
Now Levy probably cannot feasibly turn to the former academy player because of the reaction from the angry fanbase. Despite Mason's insistence that he is ready and his valid claims that he hasn't had the time to make any real difference, the main problem is that the supporters want change and as an inside man he does not represent that to many of them. He is guilty by association.
The frustrated fans have not only seen Levy fail to land Nagelsmann but also decide against making the call to Mauricio Pochettino to return. That the Argentine will now take charge of their fierce rivals Chelsea, who have had an even worse season, will sting and only increase the pressure on the Tottenham chairman.
The best thing for Mason this summer is to get applying for jobs across the game and build his managerial career away from Spurs and create something that becomes impossible to ignore. Those who have worked with him expect him to become a very good manager.
On Saturday, the limits of his available players were exposed in a toothless display at Villa Park.
Much of the problems stem from the midfield. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Oliver Skipp are too similar to play together in a midfield duo. Rather than offer an alternative to each other they are being paired up due to injuries to others and cannot provide the attacking thrust required to link defence and attack.
Paired together in a midfield three with a playmaker and they would work but as a duo they leave the front three isolated.
Rodrigo Bentancur's absence has been one of the biggest misses of Tottenham's season, the Uruguayan playing some of the best football of his career before the serious injury that has paused his career.
One small positive from Saturday was the return of Yves Bissouma, who looked bright and positive in his play after three months out and gave a glimpse of what he might have been in a less rigid side than the one he arrived into at Tottenham.
In his half an hour on the pitch, the 26-year-old was accurate with 30 of his 31 passes, seven of them played into the final third, completed both of the long balls he attempted and won one of his two ground duels.
"I'm ready, I'm ready to play," he said afterwards. "If they ask me, I'm ready to play. I'm here to help the team, my teammates and everyone. I'm always ready to play because the last three months wasn't easy for me. I'm just working really hard and now I think I'm OK and ready to play to help the team more than today."
Tottenham's right-hand side that started the match stuttered and stumbled in getting forward. Richarlison offered nothing from an attacking sense while Pedro Porro only increased fears that he can not play as either a winger or a right-back.
Dejan Kulusevski, who Spurs expect to sign permanently despite reports in Italy that he will return to Juventus, provided a bright cameo from the bench but without the cutting edge he was bringing last season.
Cristian Romero continued his flip-flopping from excellent to reckless. Last week he was superb against Crystal Palace, seven days later against Villa he was all over the place.
He went flying into a missed tackle that left him out of position for Villa's first goal for Jacob Ramsey, then the Argentine conceded the free-kick Douglas Luiz scored from with a late lunge before earning a yellow card with another reckless attempt at a tackle far away from where he was meant to be.
One of the next Spurs manager's many tasks will be taming the talented but inconsistent World Cup winner.
Then there is Harry Kane. The striker looks shattered and alone under the weight of carrying this listless club on his back. How he has hit 27 Premier League goals for such a mess of a side could end up being one of the greatest mysteries of this season. He deserves so much better and so do the fans.
With the Nagelsmann and Pochettino decisions and every defeat so the pressure increases on Levy to get this managerial appointment right. Not only that but he must do the same in naming the perfect director of football who will work with the new head coach.
It is still unclear which way around the new duo will arrive as both searches take place simultaneously. Both new arrivals will be chosen based on how well they will mesh, Levy in essence picking a pairing that he believes will gel rather than two random candidates.
A director of football should always choose his head coach rather than the other way round but time is of the essence. There will also be a fear of suddenly resetting the process with very different candidates to the ones the club has envisioned, as happened in 2021 when Fabio Paratici arrived and ripped everything up.
That is why Levy must choose far more wisely than he has in a long time with both of his appointments.
There are plenty of candidates that fulfil Tottenham's criteria of a project manager for the long-term to rebuild the club and bring attacking football back to the pitch.
Luis Enrique is among those who have been considered but would seem an odd choice with that criteria in mind. If selected the 53-year-old would more naturally act as the final chapter of the trilogy of Levy glamour appointments after Mourinho and Conte, big names who never truly fit the club in its current state even if the Spaniard's style is at the other extreme of the possession charts.
The likes of Ruben Amorim, Arne Slot, Roberto De Zerbi - if he could somehow be prised away from Brighton's far more progressive project - and even the very inexperienced Xabi Alonso fit the criteria more snugly.
Spurs need to recreate what they first found by good fortune with Pochettino in 2014, that only coming after Levy failed to lure the vastly different Louis van Gaal to north London.
Tottenham need to reset, rebuild and reconnect with a fanbase that has grown tired and, more worryingly, apathetic to the constant gaffes and disappointments of the past four years and the lack of silverware over the decades.
Watching Pochettino make the move to one of their most hated rivals is going to sting for the club's fans, particularly in the wake of seeing the most popular alternative in Nagelsmann fall by the wayside.
Spurs will say they are doing their due diligence and being patient in selecting the right man. The problem is they said that in 2021 and after 76 days of lurching from one very different manager to the next they ended up with Nuno Espirito Santo who was sacked within three months of the season starting.
Trust is not a currency Daniel Levy has to work with right now. The chants will only stop if he can bring a sense of leadership and direction back to a club that feels utterly cast adrift on his watch.
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