AHEAD OF THE GAME: Fabio Paratici is feeling the heat at Tottenham

Tottenham sporting director Fabio Paratici is under pressure to deliver after an underwhelming start at the club and the sudden departure of chief scout Steve Hitchen, who resigned this week after feeling sidelined since the Italian’s arrival last summer.

Paratici has made five permanent signings in two full transfer windows at Spurs, three of which came from his former club Juventus, as well as on-loan midfielder Dejan Kulusevski, who signed until the end of the season on deadline day.

Of the five permanent arrivals, Pape Sarr and Bryan Gil have been sent out on loan without making a Premier League start, leaving Brazilian defender Emerson Royal as the only player who was not recruited from Juventus to have made any impact at Tottenham since Paratici joined.

Head coach Antonio Conte has been publicly agitating for signings since he joined the club last October and has been left distinctly unimpressed by Spurs’ January dealings, which he described as ‘strange’.

He remains close to Paratici, however, having worked with him during his own time at Juventus.

Conte’s frustration is with chairman Daniel Levy, who controls the transfer budget.

Manchester United interim manager Ralf Rangnick has recruited German journalist and broadcaster Raphael Honigstein as a personal media adviser until the end of the season. 

London-based Honigstein has taken a six-month sabbatical from his main employer, The Athletic, to provide advice and briefing notes to Rangnick, but will continue to do broadcast work for Sky Germany, although not on United games. 

Rangnick brought in Honigstein due to the volume of media interest in his appointment and the fact he negotiated his move to United without an agent, meaning he has lacked external advice.

V