Tottenham Hotspur’s woes have left Jose Mourinho under serious pressure.

Spurs have slipped to ninth in the Premier League, nine points off the top four.

Their loss to West Ham United last weekend was perhaps the nadir, and marked their seventh loss in 13 games.

While the club have progressed to the last-16 of the Europa League by virtue of a thumping 8-1 win over the calamitous Wolfsberger, and are also in the Carabao Cup final, it is little surprise other managers are being linked with the club.

One such boss is Julian Nagelsmann, the impressive young manager of RB Leipzig.

His side are currently second in the Bundesliga and Christian Falk, the SportBILD journalist, has now commented on the rumours.

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Perhaps surprisingly, he says they’re true, and that Nagelsmann would be open to a move to Spurs should Mourinho be sacked, although Spurs fans might want to tread carefully.

Falk claims that Nagelsmann believes he needs to move to a club that could earn him the Real Madrid job eventually, so he would be treating Tottenham as something of a stepping stone.

Quoted by Sport Witness, Falk said: “Now that gets a True, whether he actually ends up at Tottenham, is of course very dependent on Mourinho and his performance.

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“In principle, Nagelsmann has a very clear career plan in different stages at Leipzig.

“Let’s say he’s now at stage 3, the career plan will end at the club like Real Madrid, which is clearly stage 1, but in between, he would apparently like to make another intermediate step.

“Tottenham is clearly on the list of the clubs he would be able to imagine now as the next step when he completes his mission at Leipzig.”

GIVEMESPORT’S Harry Sherlock says…

If Spurs were to be a stepping stone for Nagelsmann, that really wouldn’t be the worst thing.

If they were to sack Mourinho, appointing a young, hungry manager with a clear career plan would be a decent way to wash away a lot of the toxicity that has threatened to engulf the club in recent weeks.

And it would only motivate Nagelsmann, who is just 32, to perform as well as he possibly can in order to stand a chance of one day standing on the touchline at the Santiago Bernabeu.

It’s a win-win.

After all, the equation is clear: Nagelsmann must succeed in order to have any chance of earning a further step up, and that can only be good news for Spurs in the immediate term.

Keep an eye on this one.