Ryan Mason is still only 31, but given what he's experienced in the last two years, he feels like a veteran compared to the man who took over at Tottenham Hotspur in April 2021.
Back then, just 29, Mason was thrust into the interim head coach role when Jose Mourinho was sacked. Now, almost exactly two years on, Mason has been brought in to replace Cristian Stellini, who lasted less than a month as a temporary replacement for Antonio Conte. As in 2021, Mason has six league games to try and salvage a season that is spiralling out of control.
It's a huge responsibility for someone so young, but over the last two years Mason has managed a major cup final (losing 1-0 in the Carabao Cup to Manchester City), had to deal with the fallout of Spurs' attempts to join the European Super League and the subsequent angry protests, and learned a huge amount from working alongside Conte and then effectively in place of him when he was ill and then let go.
Despite being so young last time (as he is this time), Mason's response to chairman Daniel Levy when asked to step in was simply: “I'm ready”. He'll feel that even more so now given his tumultuous experiences over the last two years. And those pale in comparison to his near-death experience in January 2017 when, aged 25, a sickening clash of heads while playing for Hull City against Chelsea ended his playing career. Mason's inspiring back story is detailed here.
Spurs' disastrous season so far means Mason takes on the interim job with the team's confidence on the floor, and after one win in five games facing up to the real possibility of no European football next season. His first two games in charge will be Manchester United at home on Thursday, followed by Liverpool away three days later. Winning either will be a massive ask but his target first and foremost will be to try and get the fans believing again and feeling that connection with the players and the club.
Mason will start with games against Man Utd and Liverpool (Photo: Getty)
As was the case two years ago when Mason oversaw four wins from six league games to salvage a place in the Europa Conference League, he does not need to oversee a revolution. He needs to raise spirits sufficiently to jump-start Tottenham's season and secure the few wins required to take them over the line.
Can he do it? Mason, a former Spurs player and lifelong supporter is certainly not lacking for advocates in the game (including among the club's current playing and coaching staff), and there's a sense that he has learned lessons from two years ago and will be desperate to apply them. It's also easy to forget because of how young he is that Mason has been coaching for more than five years.
He is a very intelligent, tactically astute and extremely positive person, but Mason doesn't need to be Spurs' long-term saviour. Maybe one day he could be that, but right now what the players need is a jolt of confidence and adrenaline to pick them up from the canvas after Sunday's humiliation at Newcastle.
It was a very similar situation in April 2021, and with Tottenham losing at home to Southampton at half-time in his first game in charge, Mason was struck by how low on confidence everyone was. The mood was so flat that he decided his focus should not be on tactics first of all but on giving off the right energy and trying to be as positive as possible. He told the players to lift their chins up and puff their chests out and then went through a few points on the big screen.
There was no Churchillian speech. There didn't have to be. It was just about reminding the players that there was still a game to be won, and that rescuing a game when behind was possible. Spurs went on to win 2-1, the first time they had won a game when trailing at half-time in almost 18 months.
Mason knows he can't change the culture at Spurs overnight. It's been a bruising period for everyone at the club, and so at this point it's about small wins. Lifting the players and making them feel positive about coming into training, a bit more at ease. This was something he managed to do two years ago, and there's a feeling that it'll be a little easier for him now given there's a bit more distance in age between him and most of the players. And this time around, there was already an easing of the tension when Conte left, and so now Mason needs to align that with tactics and training sessions that excite the players.
The feedback on Mason's training sessions was very positive in 2021. He was helped by the low bar set by Mourinho's unpopular coaching staff, but it was said that Mason's sessions were some of the best since Mauricio Pochettino.
“Even with a short time, he gave us a team structure, a shape,” captain Hugo Lloris said soon after Mason's appointment last time. “He gave us his football approach. To be honest, he's 29 years old but he shows more maturity than that. And confidence. He transmits this good energy to the players.
“You would be surprised, you would be surprised. He's ready. He knows exactly what to say to the players. He's got the proximity to the players that's helping him. Then it's about the (team) leaders as well to show their leadership. But he's got a real philosophy of football. It will surprise you.”
During his short time in charge, Mason also showed he wasn't afraid of making tough decisions — dropping the club's record signing Tanguy Ndombele for the Carabao Cup final against City. For that game he also benched Gareth Bale, Spurs' superstar when Mason was coming through the academy. Those who know him well say he has developed a steeliness to go with his emotional intelligence, a balance honed in part by working closely with Pochettino and Spurs' former academy head John McDermott. He is said to be a “different animal” from the shy kid who broke into the Spurs first team in his twenties.
Since his first period in charge, Mason learned a lot from working with Conte — his attention to detail, his emotional heft when speaking to the players, the ability to spot things in matches. Mason showcased the latter skill himself when he helped devise the shrewd plan to instruct Eric Dier to position himself a few yards further forward and almost man-mark Bernardo Silva in Spurs' 1-0 win over Manchester City in February. Once in charge against Brighton after Stellini had been sent to the stands, he urged Dier to push on again and sent on Arnaut Danjuma in a switch that helped Spurs nick a 2-1 win. Many observers felt Mason looked more natural as the No 1 than the more reserved Stellini did during his four games in charge.
The players have generally been very impressed by Mason's coaching, and maintaining this positive relationship with the squad will be one of Mason's most important jobs. There are many who feel, as Conte did, that it is the players who are to blame for the constant churn of Tottenham managers, including Sunday's 6-1 defeat at Newcastle that cost Stellini his job.
Mason is well-liked by the Spurs players, who find him relatable and have been impressed by the aforementioned attention to detail. He is said to have the full support of the players committee of Lloris, Harry Kane, Dier and Pierre-Emile Hobjerg that met with Levy on Monday.
“I like him a lot, because you know he was a player there just a couple of years ago,” Dejan Kulusevski said earlier this month. “He knows how it is to be in our shoes. Like today, I spoke to him after training, he was seeing something when I was shooting and trying to correct it, and asked me about what I think when I shoot like that.
“It's good when you can speak with someone who knows what they're talking about because he was in your shoes a couple of years ago. He's a fantastic guy, honestly.”
That ability to connect with players while retaining his authority is a Mason staple. “He can empathise with the players without being soft,” Chris Ramsey, the QPR head of coaching who was one of the most senior figures in the Spurs youth set-up when Mason was trying to break through, told The Athletic in 2020. “He has a steel about him even though he comes across as quite a gentle person.
Mason has the ability to connect with the players (Photo: Getty)
“Don't be surprised if he ends up being a first-team coach somewhere. He's a scholar, and even when he was a player he always wanted to ask why things were happening and why you'd asked him to do something.”
Tactically, it will be interesting to see what Mason does but his hands are largely tied by injuries which means that, in the immediate term, 3-4-3 feels like the most sensible option (especially given what happened on Saturday).
But even if he sticks with Conte's system, perhaps one of Mason's greatest assets in the short term is that for all that he learned from the Italian the two are almost polar opposites. And a change is something fans have been crying out for, especially after Conte was replaced by his assistant Stellini, someone who is inextricably linked to him.
Where Conte always gave the impression he was above Spurs, Mason has gold-plated Tottenham credentials. He is the lifelong fan, the local lad and academy graduate who has said his dream growing up was to score at White Hart Lane. His passion for the club is evident to everyone who speaks to him.
Where Conte is all volatility — a trait that cost him his job — Mason is very measured, known for never getting too high or low. A healthy perspective on life partly down to the traumatic events of six years ago. After a period of combustibility, Spurs need a bit of calm.
And where Conte's negativity eventually sucked the life out of the club, Mason is renowned for his positivity, a big believer in the importance of giving off the right energy to his players. “If you constantly focus on negative things that will have an effect on you, the people around you, your energy, how you walk into a room,” he said last month on the High Performance Podcast. “As opposed to if I focus on what's positive or 'how can we get out of this moment?' What do we need to do to get to this state of happiness or real positivity?”
Somehow it's difficult to imagine those words coming out of Conte's mouth. Similarly, Mason's statement on Tuesday that: “It's a privilege to manage this great club. I'm ready for the challenge and know what it means to represent the club.”
This kind of rhetoric alone won't lift the gloom at Spurs, but, aligned with Mason's positivity and tactical smarts, it should help. He is also humble enough to take advice about things he's not certain of, and will lean on his staff, which will include academy coaches Matt Wells (acting assistant head coach) and Nigel Gibbs (acting first team coach), with Perry Suckling (goalkeeping coach) and Gianni Vio (set pieces coach) remaining in their existing roles. Mason is under no illusion about the challenge he faces in the next six matches. He also knows that if he impresses, he can put himself in the frame for the top job at Spurs or elsewhere.
Becoming a head coach is the ultimate aim for Mason, and well-placed sources speak of his “burning desire to succeed”, partly because of the way his playing career was so cruelly ended.
He will need to show all of that desire in the next few weeks if he's to emulate or improve on his brief period in charge two years ago.