Tottenham make key appointment as backroom staff to help Ange Postecoglou finalised

Nathan Gardiner has been reappointed as Tottenham's head of sports science and will be looking to help Ange Postecoglou's side in the months ahead.

football.london understands that the experienced 48-year-old returned to the north London club just over a month ago in order to resume his 14-year relationship with Spurs. Gardiner left Tottenham in October 2020 to take up a role as a first team coach with Fulham, joining Scott Parker during his spell at Craven Cottage.

Gardiner made the news at Spurs in 2015 when Andros Townsend clashed with him after a game against Aston Villa. The England international, now at Luton, was pictured pushing and arguing with the fitness coach and was subsequently dropped from Mauricio Pochettino's squad and would not play for Tottenham again, dropped to the Under-21s before leaving for Newcastle.

«The saddest part for me, and the one thing I truly regret, is the way things ended at Spurs,» Townsend would say in 2019. «Obviously, I was so frustrated, sitting on the bench, not getting a run out. When you see your time is coming to an end at a club, it's horrible. If you're a competitor, it makes you so angry. But when it's your club, and it's clearly the end.… Personally, I was devastated.

»So I ended up taking my frustrations out on our fitness coach after a match. I was an unused sub that night, and we got into a little dispute, and I pushed him. I really regret it, because Spurs will always be my club, and I don't want the supporters to remember me from that image."

At that point Gardiner was head of sports science, fitness and conditioning and three years later also took on the role of technical coordinator. He is a versatile figure in the world of football, as he is qualified as a sports