BREAKING (and I use that word loosely): Tottenham Hotspur, a football club that apparently exists solely to test the structural integrity of my sanity, have hired Roberto De Zerbi as their third manager of the season. On the first of April. I want you to sit with that for a moment. Let it wash over you like one of De Zerbi's elaborate build-up sequences that ends with the centre-back passing it sideways seventeen times before losing it to a bloke from Leicester.

Sources close to sources tell me that the Spurs board conducted an "exhaustive search" for their new manager, which I can only assume means Daniel Levy scrolled through the list of available managers on his phone while sitting in traffic on the A10. And at the bottom of that search, past all the sensible options, past all the "maybe just get someone who can organise a defence" options, past Sam Allardyce's number which I'm told was in there purely as a palate cleanser, they landed on Roberto De Zerbi. The man whose entire football philosophy can be summarised as "vibes, passing triangles, and an almost religious opposition to clearing the ball."

Now look, I like De Zerbi. I genuinely do. The man turned Brighton into the most watchable mid-table side in living memory. His Marseille stint was, shall we say, complicated. But hiring him to fight a relegation battle is like hiring a Michelin-starred chef to work in a kebab shop at 3am. The skill set is there in theory, but the environment demands something fundamentally different, mate. Your customers don't want a deconstructed lamb jus. They want chips and they want them now.

Tottenham are 17th. SEVENTEENTH. They have conceded more goals than any side outside the bottom three. Their defensive record reads like a phone number. And the solution, apparently, is a man who once said he would "rather lose playing beautiful football than win playing ugly." Roberto, my friend, with the greatest respect, Spurs have been doing the first part of that sentence all season without any help from you.

This is their third manager of the campaign, which means Tottenham have now gone through more coaches than I've gone through pairs of shoes, and I walk a LOT because I can't afford the Tube anymore (LolFootball.com pays in exposure, which my landlord has repeatedly confirmed is not legal tender). The first one got sacked in November. The second lasted until March. De Zerbi has arrived in April with nine games left and a goal difference that looks like it was calculated by someone having a nervous breakdown.

Sources close to sources tell me De Zerbi's first training session involved a 45-minute positional rondo, at the end of which three players asked what a rondo was and one reportedly tried to hoof it long out of pure muscle memory. I cannot verify this but I desperately want it to be true.

The tactical question is genuinely fascinating though, isn't it? De Zerbi wants his centre-backs to split, his full-backs to invert, his goalkeeper to play as a sweeper, and his midfielders to occupy approximately forty-seven different zones simultaneously. Tottenham's current squad struggle to occupy a single zone without falling over or getting a yellow card. It's like asking a group of Year 6 kids to perform Swan Lake. The ambition is admirable. The execution will be harrowing.

But here's where I'll give Spurs the tiniest sliver of credit: at least they've gone for someone with ideas. Wrong ideas, possibly. Ideas that may actively accelerate their descent into the Championship. But ideas nonetheless. In a relegation fight, you either go full pragmatist or full lunatic, and Tottenham have chosen lunatic. There is a strange nobility in that.

If it works, it'll be the greatest tactical miracle since Greece won Euro 2004. If it doesn't, and Tottenham go down playing tippy-tappy football from the back while conceding on the counter for the nine hundredth time this season, at least they'll do it beautifully.

Happy April Fools' Day, Spurs fans. Unfortunately, this one's real.