Tom Huddlestone has told football.london that Tottenham must give their next manager up to two years regardless of results in order to rebuild the club.
Spurs have burned through managers since Mauricio Pochettino left in November 2019 like they were going out of fashion with five different head coaches in the hot seat since the Argentine was relieved of his duties. Chairman Daniel Levy is currently undertaking the search for the next manager as well as a new director of football after Fabio Paratici resigned last month.
Huddlestone, now an academy player-coach at Manchester United, pulled on a Tottenham shirt again on Sunday to play alongside a whole host of former Spurs stars such as Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane, Ledley King, Danny Rose, Michael Dawson, Edgar Davids and Sandro in a remarkable charity match for Tottenham's popular kit man Steve Dukes in memory of his father and in aid of Essex & Herts Air Ambulance at Bishop's Stortford FC in front of 3,500 fans.
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When asked about the situation currently at his old club, the 36-year-old told football.london that the new manager needs time to complete a rebuild.
"Obviously it's a bit of a crossroads at the club. I think it needs a manager that is going to get 18 to 24 months regardless of the results. They're not quite but almost going to have to build from the ground up, get the foundations right," said the former England international.
"I think there's a nucleus of a good team and squad there, it just needs a bit of of solidity there, between everyone, the board, the fans and the players."
Both Huddlestone and current interim Spurs boss Ryan Mason were at the north London club at the same time, although the latter would only make his breakthrough under Mauricio Pochettino the season after Huddlestone had left for Hull, where Mason would also later leave for.
Huddlestone believes that while Mason may know the club inside out, he feels it's a big job for a first-time manager to turn Tottenham around.
"It's difficult. It's probably one of the top 10 or 12 jobs in the world for a manager so for it to be someone's first gig would be a big ask but he knows the club inside out," he said. "[Ryan] has worked under Jose [Mourinho] and Antonio [Conte] so there's not many better to learn from so maybe, but as I said it probably needs someone to have a little bit of time but also money to spend as well."
Huddlestone is in the early stages of his coaching career at United although he would not rule out the chance of working at Spurs in the future.
"I don't know. I'd always be open to that," he said. "I'm enjoying what I'm doing at Manchester United at the moment and we'll see what happens in the future."
On Sunday, Huddlestone was voted man of the match as he stroked the ball around the pitch for 90 minutes like he used to do for Spurs, setting up a string of chances and one of Defoe's goals with a perfect pinged pass over the tip.
"It was good. We've had a couple of months' notice so some of the lads have been training harder than others by the looks of it," he said. "It was a few degrees hotter than I would have liked but it was nice to see a lot of the guys that I haven't seen for 10 years or more. It was good to have a run around with them and great to do it for such a wonderful cause.
"I've known Dukesy since about 2005 and it shows what he is that all the lads turned up for him and all have such a great relationship with him."
To donate to the fundraising in memory of Charlie Dukes you can head to the JustGiving page right here and you can look out for the latest news on the match auction on Steve's Instagram page right here. For those wishing to put their cause forward to be considered to receive money from the funds raised, they should email cdcharityfootball@yahoo.com
