Garth Crooks has admitted that he was surprised to see Daniel Levy hire Ryan Mason over fellow Tottenham Hotspur academy coaches like Chris Powell and Ledley King.
Mason, who doesn’t turn 30 until June, became the youngest man in Premier League history to take charge of a match on Wednesday after overseeing Spurs’ 2-1 win over Southampton.
The former Tottenham midfielder has been put in charge of the senior side on an interim basis after Levy dismissed Jose Mourinho earlier in the week.
Powell, who won promotion to the Championship as Charlton manager earlier in his career, has been named as Mason’s assistant, while King remains as first-team coach, the same role he had during Mourinho’s reign at Hotspur Way.
And former Spurs striker Crooks believes that both Powell and King have better coaching credentials than Mason, who returned to the club as a youth-team coach in 2018.
Crooks told BBC Sport: “I was surprised Daniel Levy installed Ryan Mason as Tottenham’s caretaker manager before fellow academy coach Chris Powell – Gareth Southgate’s England assistant – or first-team coach Ledley King, both of whom have considerably more experience.”
Crooks is right about 51-year-old Powell, who has plenty of managerial experience, and although King had more of a playing career than Mason, the latter has been at Tottenham longer in a coaching role.
The former centre-back only returned to North London in a coaching capacity in September of last year, having worked as club ambassador prior to that since his retirement in 2012.
Mason probably is a much more familiar figure among the players at Hotspur Way than King and therefore you can understand Levy’s thinking.
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