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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Marc Mayo

Tottenham manager news: Bayer Leverkusen hand down final Xabi Alonso verdict after links

Xabi Alonso will not be leaving Bayer Leverkusen this summer despite links with Tottenham, the German club’s chief executive has confirmed.

Fernando Carro is adamant that the Spanish manager will remain in Leverkusen after guiding the side away from relegation trouble and into the Europa League semi-finals after just seven months in the job.

“He has a contract with us until 2024.” Carro told AS.

“He is happy here and we are happy with him. We are enjoying working together and I am sure we will be with him next season. And hopefully there will be many more, but in football you can't look much further.”

Alonso has recently committed his future to Bayer, amid Spurs’ hunt for a new manager.

Julian Nagelsmann is the favourite for the role, as talks continue between the club and targets including Luis Enrique and Ruben Amorim.

Leverkusen chief Carro has outlined what attracted them to the former Liverpool and Real Madrid midfielder, who had previously only coached Real Sociedad’s B team.

“We had been following Xabi Alonso for a long time, we had him on our list of possible future coaches for the moment we thought fit,” he continued.

“Not being able to come back with [previous coach] Gerardo Seoane, who was doing a great job and with whom we had finished third last year, we decided to go for Xabi.

“We needed a new boost and for that we had a list of various coaches. We had very good references for Xabi. We spoke with him and we realised that he really had very clear ideas, he had some very important abilities and other virtues, and very important experience in the world of football.”

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