Our View: Could Tottenham miss out on Zlatan Ibrahimovic signing due to reported prior fallout between Jose Mourinho and Mino Raiola?

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Tottenham Hotspur – now with Jose Mourinho as manager – are reportedly hoping to bring Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Spurs.

With Tottenham Hotspur having appointed Jose Mourinho as manager, the rumour mill has gone into overdrive regarding which players Spurs could be looking to move for in the coming months.

According to The Telegraph, Mourinho is considering ­hijacking AC Milan’s attempts to ­re-sign Zlatan Ibrahimovic – currently a free agent – and bring him to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the two having worked well together in the past.

The Swedish forward has produced some of the best football of his career under Mourinho, during spells at Inter Milan and Manchester United respectively, and in an extract from his book, I Am Zlatan, he said the Portuguese “would become a guy I was basically willing to die for” (talkSPORT).

With Ibrahimovic reportedly having to pick between two great choices, it could come down to fine margins – could his agent Mino Raiola potentially sway it for him, and if this was the case, could his previous dealings with Mourinho – in comparison to his great relationship with Milan – end up costing Spurs?

As reported by The Telegraph, Raiola has been in contact with a number of Italian clubs, headed by Milan – the last Serie A club he played for before joining Paris Saint-Germain, while back in November last year, he told FourFourTwo that “the relations with the new Milan management are excellent”.

As for the relationship between Mourinho and Raiola, it reportedly took a bad turn in the summer of 2018 when the Portuguese and Paul Pogba fell out – according to the Manchester Evening News, Mourinho saw Pogba’s agent as the main source for the conflict rather than the player himself.

Although Raiola did say in November 2018 that Mourinho and Pogba had repaired their relationship (FourFourTwo), could the whole saga have impacted upon the working relationship between Mourinho and the agent?

Even if football is a business at the end of the day, if Raiola were to prefer having dealings with Milan rather than Mourinho regarding Ibrahimovic, and it comes to fine margins over which club the Swede opts for in the end, it could potentially come back to bite Mourinho.