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Jose Mourinho - SACKED
- Thread starter mjc23
- Start date
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/20/tott...-choice-replace-mauricio-pochettino-11185910/
Why Jose Mourinho was the only choice to replace Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham
Even for the small minority of Tottenham Hotspur fans that felt Mauricio Pochettino needed to leave the club, his departure feels more like a bereavement than a sacking – a punch to the gut every bit as painful as Raheem Sterling’s stoppage-time strike at the Etihad last season but without VAR to undo it. Usually when a manager is sacked the emotions range from relief to joy, but this just feels profoundly sad. Pochettino changed the very fabric of Spurs, from serial bottlers staggering from one coach to the next with no clear identity to genuine challengers playing a vibrant, pulsating brand of football in their manager’s image. Pochettino forged a formidable defence, a dominant midfield and an attack that pressed ferociously and scored ruthlessly. At their best, Spurs could beat anyone; they were feared. He redefined what the club were capable of.
He did have his flaws, of course, and Tottenham’s form over the last 12 months has been closer to relegation candidates than title contenders, but his body of work surely merited more time and support to turn things around. The general consensus was that Spurs needed to build again, start a new cycle, but chairman Daniel Levy’s decision to appoint Jose Mourinho suggests he feels there is still plenty of mileage in this group of players.
Mourinho is Levy’s unicorn, the manager he has always coveted. Back in 2007, when the Portuguese left Chelsea the first time, Spurs tried to lure him to White Hart Lane but were prevented from doing so by a clause that prohibited Mourinho from managing another Premier League side. Four league titles in three different countries followed, and another Champions League. But he is a very different manager now from the one that left Stamford Bridge all those years ago. Many will regard him as a worse one. His time at Manchester United seemed to have a permanent cloud hanging over it as the manager became increasingly curmudgeonly, irritated by what he felt was a lack of investment. His pragmatic, dour tactics looked dated compared to his more attack-minded peers – and feel at odds with the champagne football Spurs have always tried to play.
But he was the only logical choice to replace Pochettino. If Tottenham wanted to persist with a ‘project’ manager, to start over, they would have given the previous incumbent more time. Moreover, taking over midway through a season in which Spurs sit in 14th place – albeit only three points off fifth – is not the ideal breeding ground for a new era under an emerging coach. Mourinho gets instant results and that is what Levy will demand. A top-four finish, though 11 points adrift, is the expectation. It’s a unique situation for Mourinho for two reasons. First, he has never been parachuted in to turn a team around before, always carefully selecting his jobs and having a full pre-season to implement his ideas. Second, he usually arrives as the task master, a dictator, but all the noises coming out of Spurs suggest Pochettino had become too authoritarian himself, too stubborn and rooted in his thinking. By comparison, Mourinho starts to feel like a breath of fresh air, a liberator, someone to actually take off the shackles.
His demeanour has changed after almost a year out of the game, he comes across more light-hearted and playful, while he will not be subject to the same level of scrutiny and expectation in north London as that which weighed so heavily in Manchester and Madrid. He’s happier and settled in the capital, surrounded by his family rather than isolated in a hotel ordering from Deliveroo every night. Pochettino, by contrast, had started to look as though his heart was not entirely in the Spurs project anymore. It was perceptible from the outside – the slight disinterest, the riddle-ridden press conferences, the lethargy – and probably even more obvious on the inside. It was telling, perhaps, that Ossie Ardiles encouraged him to take a ‘deserved rest and come back to football revitalised and refreshed’. Maybe he had squeezed out every last drop of magic.
Mourinho has spent his own time off productively, immersing himself in football; watching, studying, learning from his mistakes. He has been spotted at stadiums across Europe, regularly watching Lille alongside the French club’s sporting director Luis Campos – and do not be surprised if he is soon linked with Spurs – while he says a stint as a pundit has exposed him to a different side of the game, too. You can be assured Mourinho already has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the team he has inherited, and the players he wants to compliment them. One of his great strengths is squad building, identifying what he needs and charming targets to join him. Whether Levy will back him is a different matter, having gone nearly two years without strengthening the squad under Pochettino, but there was always a sense that the Argentine was too indecisive in the market and too quick to exercise his right to veto deals. The profile of player Mourinho buys has probably been a little unfairly stereotyped too, signing as many players on the cusp of their prime as the veteran pros for which he is noted – for every Zlatan Ibrahimovic there is a Paul Pogba or Diogo Dalot. The work he did with Jesse Lingard, who briefly looked like he had made a real leap, speaks to his capacity as a nurturer of potential, while a then 18-year-old Marcus Rashford made 53 appearances in Mourinho’s first season at United. Not too shabby for a manager who distrusts youth.
In his statement after being appointed, the reference to being excited by Tottenham’s academy feels pointed, particularly with Pochettino having started to abandon those principles which had defined the early years of his reign. This season, Spurs have not started a single under-21 player in the Premier League. Juan Foyth, Oliver Skipp and Ryan Sessegnon, the youngest players in the squad, have played just 23 minutes combined. To suggest Mourinho is some great diversion from the path Pochettino was on would be to ignore the reality of the last 12 months. Spurs’ integration of youth has dipped massively, while the football on offer has been barely recognisable from the side that came so close to winning the title. The relentless pressing has disappeared, the defensive solidity diluted, the goals dried up.
Mourinho is well positioned to correct that. He is one of the best defensive coaches the game has ever seen and his ability to negate the strengths of the opposition was still evident even as his time at United turned sour. The current Spurs side feels like a good fit; experience at the back, power in midfield, pacey counter-attacking options and a world-class frontman. Spurs – who have led in eight of their 12 Premier League matches this season – need to start grinding out wins, and Mourinho knows exactly how to do that. He is also a better attacking coach than he is given credit for; his Real Madrid side still hold the record for most goals (121) in a La Liga season, while Inter were top scorers in Serie A two years running. Spurs’ attack has looked a little too automated under Pochettino recently, almost too well drilled, but Mourinho’s offensive approach promotes a certain level of expression and spontaneity.
‘In attack, I favour more the approach of Bobby Robson, who likes to give freedom to certain players to play their own way, outside the team’s system – those two or three players who on their own can make a difference,’ says Mourinho. He’ll certainly have plenty of difference-makers at Spurs, more so than he did at United, and the onus will be on getting them to perform when it matters. That did not always happen under Pochettino, with the failure to show up in big games and deliver the trophy his tenure deserved the only major blot on his copybook. Mourinho, so often able to pull out a tactical masterclass, beat him with United and Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final and League Cup final respectively, while he had losing records against Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and even Manuel Pellegrini – with a nod to Saturday’s game against West Ham.
Perhaps his biggest problem, though, was that he got Tottenham playing at a level so high that it eventually cost him his job. He made finishing in the top four appear normal, sustainable, when in fact he was working miracles – right up to that night in Amsterdam – on a very modest budget compared to his rivals. He changed what is expected of Spurs, and now Levy has turned to a manager used to delivering on that. This improbable marriage brings together a club that has not lifted a league title since 1961 with a coach who has won everywhere he’s been, and something’s got to give. Pochettino leaves without a trophy but no end of gratitude and unforgettable memories. Mourinho has never left a club with so much good will still intact despite his success, but, for Levy, it is clearly a price worth paying – and, at the very least, it will make for a great TV series on Amazon Prime.
Why Jose Mourinho was the only choice to replace Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham
Even for the small minority of Tottenham Hotspur fans that felt Mauricio Pochettino needed to leave the club, his departure feels more like a bereavement than a sacking – a punch to the gut every bit as painful as Raheem Sterling’s stoppage-time strike at the Etihad last season but without VAR to undo it. Usually when a manager is sacked the emotions range from relief to joy, but this just feels profoundly sad. Pochettino changed the very fabric of Spurs, from serial bottlers staggering from one coach to the next with no clear identity to genuine challengers playing a vibrant, pulsating brand of football in their manager’s image. Pochettino forged a formidable defence, a dominant midfield and an attack that pressed ferociously and scored ruthlessly. At their best, Spurs could beat anyone; they were feared. He redefined what the club were capable of.
He did have his flaws, of course, and Tottenham’s form over the last 12 months has been closer to relegation candidates than title contenders, but his body of work surely merited more time and support to turn things around. The general consensus was that Spurs needed to build again, start a new cycle, but chairman Daniel Levy’s decision to appoint Jose Mourinho suggests he feels there is still plenty of mileage in this group of players.
Mourinho is Levy’s unicorn, the manager he has always coveted. Back in 2007, when the Portuguese left Chelsea the first time, Spurs tried to lure him to White Hart Lane but were prevented from doing so by a clause that prohibited Mourinho from managing another Premier League side. Four league titles in three different countries followed, and another Champions League. But he is a very different manager now from the one that left Stamford Bridge all those years ago. Many will regard him as a worse one. His time at Manchester United seemed to have a permanent cloud hanging over it as the manager became increasingly curmudgeonly, irritated by what he felt was a lack of investment. His pragmatic, dour tactics looked dated compared to his more attack-minded peers – and feel at odds with the champagne football Spurs have always tried to play.
But he was the only logical choice to replace Pochettino. If Tottenham wanted to persist with a ‘project’ manager, to start over, they would have given the previous incumbent more time. Moreover, taking over midway through a season in which Spurs sit in 14th place – albeit only three points off fifth – is not the ideal breeding ground for a new era under an emerging coach. Mourinho gets instant results and that is what Levy will demand. A top-four finish, though 11 points adrift, is the expectation. It’s a unique situation for Mourinho for two reasons. First, he has never been parachuted in to turn a team around before, always carefully selecting his jobs and having a full pre-season to implement his ideas. Second, he usually arrives as the task master, a dictator, but all the noises coming out of Spurs suggest Pochettino had become too authoritarian himself, too stubborn and rooted in his thinking. By comparison, Mourinho starts to feel like a breath of fresh air, a liberator, someone to actually take off the shackles.
His demeanour has changed after almost a year out of the game, he comes across more light-hearted and playful, while he will not be subject to the same level of scrutiny and expectation in north London as that which weighed so heavily in Manchester and Madrid. He’s happier and settled in the capital, surrounded by his family rather than isolated in a hotel ordering from Deliveroo every night. Pochettino, by contrast, had started to look as though his heart was not entirely in the Spurs project anymore. It was perceptible from the outside – the slight disinterest, the riddle-ridden press conferences, the lethargy – and probably even more obvious on the inside. It was telling, perhaps, that Ossie Ardiles encouraged him to take a ‘deserved rest and come back to football revitalised and refreshed’. Maybe he had squeezed out every last drop of magic.
Mourinho has spent his own time off productively, immersing himself in football; watching, studying, learning from his mistakes. He has been spotted at stadiums across Europe, regularly watching Lille alongside the French club’s sporting director Luis Campos – and do not be surprised if he is soon linked with Spurs – while he says a stint as a pundit has exposed him to a different side of the game, too. You can be assured Mourinho already has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the team he has inherited, and the players he wants to compliment them. One of his great strengths is squad building, identifying what he needs and charming targets to join him. Whether Levy will back him is a different matter, having gone nearly two years without strengthening the squad under Pochettino, but there was always a sense that the Argentine was too indecisive in the market and too quick to exercise his right to veto deals. The profile of player Mourinho buys has probably been a little unfairly stereotyped too, signing as many players on the cusp of their prime as the veteran pros for which he is noted – for every Zlatan Ibrahimovic there is a Paul Pogba or Diogo Dalot. The work he did with Jesse Lingard, who briefly looked like he had made a real leap, speaks to his capacity as a nurturer of potential, while a then 18-year-old Marcus Rashford made 53 appearances in Mourinho’s first season at United. Not too shabby for a manager who distrusts youth.
In his statement after being appointed, the reference to being excited by Tottenham’s academy feels pointed, particularly with Pochettino having started to abandon those principles which had defined the early years of his reign. This season, Spurs have not started a single under-21 player in the Premier League. Juan Foyth, Oliver Skipp and Ryan Sessegnon, the youngest players in the squad, have played just 23 minutes combined. To suggest Mourinho is some great diversion from the path Pochettino was on would be to ignore the reality of the last 12 months. Spurs’ integration of youth has dipped massively, while the football on offer has been barely recognisable from the side that came so close to winning the title. The relentless pressing has disappeared, the defensive solidity diluted, the goals dried up.
Mourinho is well positioned to correct that. He is one of the best defensive coaches the game has ever seen and his ability to negate the strengths of the opposition was still evident even as his time at United turned sour. The current Spurs side feels like a good fit; experience at the back, power in midfield, pacey counter-attacking options and a world-class frontman. Spurs – who have led in eight of their 12 Premier League matches this season – need to start grinding out wins, and Mourinho knows exactly how to do that. He is also a better attacking coach than he is given credit for; his Real Madrid side still hold the record for most goals (121) in a La Liga season, while Inter were top scorers in Serie A two years running. Spurs’ attack has looked a little too automated under Pochettino recently, almost too well drilled, but Mourinho’s offensive approach promotes a certain level of expression and spontaneity.
‘In attack, I favour more the approach of Bobby Robson, who likes to give freedom to certain players to play their own way, outside the team’s system – those two or three players who on their own can make a difference,’ says Mourinho. He’ll certainly have plenty of difference-makers at Spurs, more so than he did at United, and the onus will be on getting them to perform when it matters. That did not always happen under Pochettino, with the failure to show up in big games and deliver the trophy his tenure deserved the only major blot on his copybook. Mourinho, so often able to pull out a tactical masterclass, beat him with United and Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final and League Cup final respectively, while he had losing records against Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and even Manuel Pellegrini – with a nod to Saturday’s game against West Ham.
Perhaps his biggest problem, though, was that he got Tottenham playing at a level so high that it eventually cost him his job. He made finishing in the top four appear normal, sustainable, when in fact he was working miracles – right up to that night in Amsterdam – on a very modest budget compared to his rivals. He changed what is expected of Spurs, and now Levy has turned to a manager used to delivering on that. This improbable marriage brings together a club that has not lifted a league title since 1961 with a coach who has won everywhere he’s been, and something’s got to give. Pochettino leaves without a trophy but no end of gratitude and unforgettable memories. Mourinho has never left a club with so much good will still intact despite his success, but, for Levy, it is clearly a price worth paying – and, at the very least, it will make for a great TV series on Amazon Prime.
parklane1
Tony Galvin
Who knows, but ( imo) he has not been the same keeper over the last couple of seasons.
Modric THFC
Jimmy McCormick
Everytime you use the word 'Jose' (and you've been doing it since last night) I can picture you tossing off over a photo of him lifting some cup for Chelsea
Sickening.
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
This line in particular was interesting to me:
He has been spotted at stadiums across Europe, regularly watching Lille alongside the French club’s sporting director Luis Campos – and do not be surprised if he is soon linked with Spurs
I would be very happy to see a return of a DoF at Spurs, very happy indeed - and it would go a long way to negating the potential issues people expect between Levy and Mourinho.
If its a much simpler relationship of Levy gives the DoF a budget, and he deals with Mourinho, I think everything works better.
And this Campos guys sounds like the real deal:
Wiki: "As the man who helped to launch the careers of players such as Fabinho, Bernardo Silva, Thomas Lemar, Anthony Martial and Nicolas Pepe, Luis Campos has established a reputation as one of the game's leading talent-spotters."
https://www.skysports.com/football/...ampos-the-transfer-chief-with-the-midas-touch
https://breakingthelines.com/uncate...-footballs-most-underrated-sporting-director/
Both articles are worth reading
He has been spotted at stadiums across Europe, regularly watching Lille alongside the French club’s sporting director Luis Campos – and do not be surprised if he is soon linked with Spurs
I would be very happy to see a return of a DoF at Spurs, very happy indeed - and it would go a long way to negating the potential issues people expect between Levy and Mourinho.
If its a much simpler relationship of Levy gives the DoF a budget, and he deals with Mourinho, I think everything works better.
And this Campos guys sounds like the real deal:
Wiki: "As the man who helped to launch the careers of players such as Fabinho, Bernardo Silva, Thomas Lemar, Anthony Martial and Nicolas Pepe, Luis Campos has established a reputation as one of the game's leading talent-spotters."
https://www.skysports.com/football/...ampos-the-transfer-chief-with-the-midas-touch
https://breakingthelines.com/uncate...-footballs-most-underrated-sporting-director/
Both articles are worth reading
parklane1
Tony Galvin
I think that is a very good summing up.
mudshark
Chris Armstrong
The way everything's gone since we left the old place, coupled with the joy being sucked out of every goal by VAR has made me seriously question whether I'm going to bother renewing my ST next summer.
Finney Is Back
Andy Thompson
Campos is one of the top 10 in the game i’d say. I was surprised he ended up at Lille after Monaco.
ringo
Tim Sherwood
Whether we get 'good' Mourinho, 'bad' Mourinho, or 'new super-charged contrite and fully up to date with the latest football tactics' Mourinho isn't going to make much difference if we go down the 'promise a lot of money for players that never really materialises' (at the right time) route.
Daisuk
Nayim
Daisuk
Nayim
I just read somewhere that Mourinho wanted the assistant coach at Lille as his assistant.
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
Have to say I'm not particularly aware of him, but what I'm reading is incredibly impressive.
The second article I linked is long, but worth reading, he's basically Levy's soulmate.
Gazza
Frederic Kanoute
Sherwood … it doesn't always work you could have referenced Ole, Poyet, Neville et al who were lauded as great players but not what is needed. Besides Lampard has a long long way to go.
markysimmo
Johnny nice-tits
I think we could see the end of Sissoko under Jose
Finney Is Back
Andy Thompson
But unlike what he has done in previous experiences, the 'new' Mourinho will bet on young players. Plataforma knows the Special One wants to sign a few experienced footballers, such as Manchester United's Matic. But the focus will be on young players, such as Sporting Lisbon's Bruno Fernandes (which Tottenham tried to sign before) and SL Benfica's central defender Rúben Dias.
I would be absolutely delighted with those three. I was trying to think of an experienced defensive minded midfielder that we might be able to pick up for a lowish fee, didn’t realise he was coming to the end of his contract. Him in the middle of N’Dombele and Lo Celso in a midfield three of a 4-3-3 or with Winks in the 2 of the 4-2-3-1 could work really well IMO.
Finney Is Back
Andy Thompson
I think he’s gone and got him hasn’t he?