Tottenham Hotspur offer David Pleat scouting role

Posted Saturday, October 08, 2011 by theguardian.com

The former Tottenham Hotspur manager and Guardian columnist David Pleat has been offered a scouting job at the north London club.

Pleat, who has managed the club on four separate occasions – three of them as caretaker – has been offered the chance to scout players in Britain and abroad for Harry Redknapp's team.

The 66-year-old has recently been working as a football consultant for Nottingham Forest but stepped down from the role last week.

Michael Dawson has suffered a slight setback in his recovery from an achilles injury. The defender suffered the injury five weeks ago and was expected to be out for around two months, but Redknapp raised hopes that he would be back in action ahead of schedule.

However, the 27-year-old played down expectations that he was on the verge of an early comeback today after revealing he had been told to stop jogging and return to doing gym work instead.

"I was outside running earlier in the week but the achilles was still a little sore, so I've had to take a step back and concentrate on working in the gym," Dawson said.

"The physios aren't too worried as I've been in a protective boot for a couple of weeks and I need to strengthen it up. I'm obviously a little down, but you never know with injuries and rehab, so we'll wait and see. I'll have a weekend's rest now and then it will be back to it next week.

"It's so disappointing to be injured and I was with Tom Huddlestone in the gym this week, he's also out, and it's a hard time for a footballer, it's the side of the game people don't see."

The centre-half was delighted to see his fellow defender Kyle Walker, who is now on international duty with England, open his Tottenham account in style in the north London derby win over Arsenal.

Dawson said: "It was funny with Kyle's winner. I was sat on the bench with Danny Rose and as it came to him, just before he took the touch, Danny said: 'he's got this' and suddenly, it was a goal.

"Everyone was saying 'wow'. We're all delighted for Kyle, he's been fantastic. You don't always get the plaudits as a defender but he'll be a fans' hero now.