Sources: Hitchen drops Nuno bombshell amid Tottenham civil war
Steve Hitchen has privately washed his hands of the appointment of Nuno Espirito Santo by Tottenham, Football Insider understands.
The Portugese was named as the club's new manager on 30 June at the end of an agonising 10-week search for Jose Mourinho's replacement.
Nuno has overseen three consecutive Premier League defeats and is already under pressure amid strong criticism from supporters of the performances in those matches, especially in last weekend's 3-1 defeat to Arsenal.
Sunday's win over Aston Villa puts the Portugese and Spurs on a far sounder footing heading into the international break.
But there is a civil war behind the scenes over the manager search process that was initially led by Hitchen before Fabio Paratici took over when he was appointed managing director in the second week of June.
A Tottenham source has told Football Insider that Hitchen's private stance to friends is that Nuno is "nothing to do with him".
In the blame game over the club's rollercoaster manager search Nuno was initially dismissed as a potential candidate in the wake of his exit from Wolves at the end of last season.
That was when Hitchen was overseeing the process, but there was a significant change of stance when Paratici was in charge and multiple candidates had fallen by the wayside.
Those included those championed by the Italian including Antonio Conte, Paulo Fonseca and Gennaro Gattuso.
Nuno was handed a two-year contract when he took over, in contract to the far longer deals agreed by his predecessors Jose Mourinho and Mauricio Pochettino.