José Mourinho has been continuously maligned by some since joining Tottenham, the slander all been wilfully ignorant of the chaos left behind by his predecessor. Headlines asking if the honeymoon was over were cheap to compose and merrily published, paying no attention to what was clearly a physically and psychologically fatigued squad of players.
Tweets such as this one all too common. No context and no depth of thought applied. The problem with football managers is that they need the right players – those things on the end of their arms are hands, not wands.
The rebuild at Tottenham will continue and as it is Tottenham that work will be undertaken at a comparatively glacial pace. There will as the politicians sometimes say, “be bumps in the road”.
What we got yesterday against Manchester City was a wonderful glimpse of how things can be with a perennial winner at the helm. It was José that introduced Japhet Tanganga for example. Where the hell was he on Pochettino’s shift? The boy’s been on out books since he was 10-years old!
Serge Aurier will probably always flirt with disaster, but he simply needed managing, Lo Celso is another one Mauricio was overly precious over. As for Luca Moura, anyone questioning the soundness of Poch might care to explain our Champions League final starting XI to me. Davinson Sanchez was another one not entirely trusted.
Mourinho said in a press conference a few weeks ago that the whole team needed to contribute more defensively, and this is something that great teams have always done. The solution when a side is leaking goals, is not to simply “buy another right back”.
The graphics above of City’s attacking third looks like something out of the Blitz. Yet our defensive map is peppered with not goals, but successful clearances and interceptions.
If anyone is looking for excuses, to deride this achievement, then I suggest they take a look at the xG ratios. Combine this with the side José selected, the shape in which we played, how the players were instructed, and you get something a tad more sophisticated than “try to do ’em on the break lads“.
Jermaine Jenas makes a case for the BBC for this game being all about City being unable to finish their dinner, but that simply isn’t the case, this was about Tottenham denying what was on paper a significantly superior side,
Tactical masterclass is an overused phrase, so I’ll opt for “superbly marshalled” to describe Mourinho’s 2-0 win.
Under José will continue to get a pragmatic approach to putting Spurs on the right path. Yesterday was an important game. We beat the Champions, a side with constructed with countless millions, some 17 points above us.
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Quite a few of the old HarryHotspur crew, who no longer post here, were of the opinion that he was a closet Gooner. They also said the same of Harry ‘boy’ Redknapp.
For only 86 million you can buy the most expensive player in italy, the most valuable in the serie A… Christian eriksen 🤣
😆 i would be suprised.. Maybe his kid supports them? I would have to see a photo to believe that.
We might grab a league or fa cup, with a bit of luck.. But yeah we will never become a top ‘winning’ club until we operate like one.. Wages as well as transfers are also a huge problem. Why would any top player want to come to us when they can get double or triple pay compared to us. Nice stadium, but no trophies and only half a wage.
His Range Rover allegedly carried a Gooner shield.
It can in some cases – all depends on the steel and determination of the team reduced to 10 men. Some fold, others fight harder. In Man City’s case I think it took the wind out of their sails for a while and then they recovered.
I like lo celsco and Ndombele. My issue is we report record profits by never spend, we would rather buy 3 £30m players than one for £90m. ENIC are penny wise pound foolish. Quite simply they don’t make decisions to win trophies they make decisions to access better revenue streams. Jose will not win under these conditions.
Never mate. He’s one of us. Forrest, newcastle. After us he went qpr for a bit i think. He smashed the gooners in that semi final when we won our mickey mouse cup. Pat jennings was a judas 🤣
😆
Plus one.. I’ll be impressed if maureens still with us in four years and has won anything at all…. I would be more than happy for enic to sell up (which they won’t this is levys life)…. I know the Boy loves Maureen and is clearly a fan, but I bet he’d also want enic and levy out too. Struggling to see us win anything under these guys. They take and take but no give.. 104 million on ndombele and lo celso, still scratching my head here. Could have brought a proper baller with that money. Ndombele looks good, but hes injured rather a lot for a young whippersnapper.
Under poch we also managed to beat these big teams. We got to the champs league final by doing city (a bit of luck and var) only last season.. We beat them 3 or 4 times in a row when pep was taking them over including a 4 -1 thrashing. We beat united and chelsea and also finished above them both in the league under poch.. All while the team was being neglected with poor wages, no transfers in or out.. We all prefer winning.. I prefer winning by smashing the opposition the klopp/poch way, rather than joses defensive italian style.. Either way we haven’t won anything, yet.
Alot of truth H.. Great result. We did get lucky though, normally city would have scored three or four or five of those. Aguero and sterling missed sitters from point blank range.. Dodgy ref decisions.. This is football on a plate though justice isn’t always served, even with the everlasting aid of var.. I thought sterling should have had red for that ankle breaker on dele. Then it looked like lloris took sterling down after saving. Either lloris made contact or sterling dived. Or both ? 🤔 Var and ref just let everyone off it was strange…. Personally (apart from his eva carneiro outburst) i have always been a fan of maureens personality. Hes a funny guy, witty, clever, usually shows respect (even to us over the years as our enemy).. It is his strategy and style that i am no fan of. Sitting deep inviting pressure. Grinding out low score draws and wins. It is bus parking at times, and all inferior teams do it when they know they cant match their opposition for skill… I much prefer to play in myself or watch a team that plays a team press, a high press, and most importantly attacking attractive football… Poch or klopp style is the best way for me. If i dont have the ball then im quickly hunting it down. The balls precious. Keep letting great players have it then they will punish you….. Maureen hasn’t done much different to poch regarding players. He slowly gave lo celso game time too, gio only started recently hes been here 6 months. Ndombele its been same. The likes of rose and verts getting frozed out by both….. A major plus now is that tintins finally gone. Every game without him this season we have either won or took it to the other team.
Great to see Winks play with dash and confidence. If he can get back to his best it will be great for him and the team. Good call
Playing against 10 men helps confidence too.
Agree with the substance but Lo Celso was a Poch signing… he turned up unfit and was off the pace in his earlier cameos and was not fast tracked by Mourinho. Lots of speculation by fans and pundits as to whether we would exercise our option. What a difference 3 points makes! Bergwijn is clearly not match fit for the PL, cramping at the end, could have strained a calf, pulled a hamstring. Tanguy, as exciting as he can be has also struggled with the fitness and physical demands of playing in England. Mourinho didn’t throw him under the bus when Tanguy withdrew from a game but you could hear the engine running. Just some honesty and balance please.
No way, simply your self-serving spin. Enic out supporters, of which H H used to be prime mover continually wanted backing for a manager who got us consecutive CL football with several windows with no transfers in, the only major club in Europe to not buy.
As for feeble attempts to blame Poch with the forensic observations about Tanganga at 19-20 not playing because he probably was not ready, how do the sages rate not playing Parrott even though we don’t have a proper striker?
Parrott needs to be managed, Jose tells us- good management. Poch not playing Tanganga when he was not ready – poor management. Remember Jose first tried to fill the position with Sess.
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Good balanced comment.
I think he was a shit player, but is a very good pundit actually.
The confidence began to grow straight after Lloris saved the pen – the team spirit sky rocketed.
Yep, I agree, look last season when we lost 0-1 to United at home, we battered them, had about 25 shots on target, De Gea was man of the match !!!!! Small Steps, Mourinho will get us winning, sometimes nicely, sometimes ugly. The team that did so well chasing Leicseter and Chelsea for the Prem has all but gone, and to be fair to Poch he did warn everyone that it needed refreshing..
How many times when Pochettino team were at its height were everyone saying “we should have beaten… (chelsea , Man U come to mind) “ but we didn’t after looking like the better team ! Multiple times, and the pundits were praising the opposition killer/clinical finishing and game plan.
I prefer winning
The thing is it’as okay people saying ‘City should have done this, and city should have done that’, but the fact is that ‘City didn’t’, and our boys worked really hard, and took their opportunities. Would we all prefer to now be saying ‘Yeah, we attacked really well, and got stuffed 5-0’. We should praise the fact that we converted such a high percentage of our opportunities. I applaud Mourinho, as he was not given a striker in January , and had to set up accordingly yesterday. Lucas is great but he will never hold up play, and bring others into play, the way kane does (Or any other centre forward worth his salt).
Honestly, had we lost I am not sure this puff piece would have been written. We only had chance to score because City cant score. To argue it was great defending, is loose when you consider Aguero in the box, only having to turn his foot a fraction more and the ball is the goal rather than the side netting, not counting the number of times their forward players wanted just one more touch. We saved a penalty too…then we also gave them a gaping open goal to miss. We got lucky at the back (FYI, not 100% lucky, they did a diligent job but allowed City at least 3-4 clear chances in the first half). Then the other end, our corners were poor, our passing dreadful, and we scored off our first 2 shots. There is a case to argue city got away with a lot, I lost count of the amount of trips and pulls they made as we turned the possession over and headed for the break. Dean also failed to send sterling off on two occasions (I think that would have benefitted city as most of their missed chances had him involved). If this type of game is the future, its going to be a long hard boring time being a fan. We may get an open top bus ride to enjoy, but we will have no other entertainment for the rest of the year. I will give Jose some credit, he is playing with players that doesn’t suit his preferred style, so hopefully things change there, and he is giving players chances that Poch didn’t and it is paying dividends. When poch left, most would argue only Kane was good enough, now you look and think there are at least 5-6 players that you wouldn’t want to lose, maybe more. We are looking like a better side – now I just need Jose to fix the basics, passing to our own side, taking and defending set pieces…I will forgive counter attack style, and even less possession wins (I hate Ticky tacky get no-where football) but what I don’t like to see 10men back, and a ball lumped forward, at stages we had at least 10 in our final third, this allowed City to dominate, that needs to change – JOSE NEEDS A DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDER.
Nope…I am not a fan of ENIC and was not a fan of the Jose signing, still not impressed.
“We shook up the world” while CONQUERING it. (coming soon) J M BLUE&WHITE ARMY. YYIIDDZZ
What we have to remind ourselves of here is the fans who malign Jose are the same fans who think ENIC are doing a good job.
A winner who they deride as finished to a perennial loser in ENIC
Go figure
No one can dispute that taking three points of City was precious to our aspirations to sneak Levy into a CL spot and with that as a possibility along with perhaps a run in the CL and a punt at the FA Cup at least we have some reason to continue believing. However, nothing can hide the fact that for large parts of the game we were chasing shadows and our possession and movement generally was poor apart from a few breaks when we counter attacked but mostly ran out of ideas in the last third through lack of width. What I cannot see is any sense of balance from defensive midfield to attack. It appears that all the players are just rotating positions. I totally agree that Mourinho inherited a rotting carcass of a squad and Pooch for all the great things he did also is culpable for leaving the club in that position along with Levy and ENIC. Bergwijn scored a great goal at an important time. I would however agree with the comments that apart from that he appeared somewhat lost moving from the left to the centre of the park and despite the claim that he is one of the fastest players in the Dutch league he did not show blistering pace. I believe he needs bringing up to EPL match fitness and may serve us best coming on later in a game but I would like to see him play wide on the left, Moura wide on the right and Sonny up the middle with Ndombele and Lo Celso in behind. Sissoko is dare I say say it greatly missed as a DM. When Davies is fit I would like to see Jose give Tanganga a run at RB as on that side he may be able to offer some pace and attacking threat on his natural side. He looks the real deal. It does beg the question why he has not been given a run out under Poochs reign. However if Pooch had been here would he have played Bergwijn, would Lo Celso have had the opportunities he has had under Mourinho. Lo Celso plays in a style very similar to Messi and that is a very exciting development. He already is contributing more to the team than Eriksen was doing before he left. NDombele looks absolute class and if he can stay fit alongside LoCelso then that is a potentially phenomenal pairing. There is no question we need a striker and I would give Troy Parrot some match time just to see if he can rise to the occasion likeTanganga has.
Yesterday’s result had Mourinho’s pragmatism written all over it,but he set us up well.Not the best style of football but we did grow in confidence once the goal went in.
However there were some good performances by our players.As I said yesterday Winks always seems to perform best up against quality oposition and I thought he played very well.
Honourable mentions should also go to Tanganga,Lloris,Lo Celso,Toby and, apart from the penalty he conceeded,Aurier.N’Dombele looked bright when he came on,when will he be fit enough for 90 minutes?
I know Bergwijn is getting a lot of credit,but I felt apart from his excellent goal he was fairly peripheral,the pace of the PL passing him by.He will learn though.
An excellent 3 points,it looks like Gazza’s predictions are proving correct.
Superb analysis,Gazza will love that.
Judas Jenas has always been a Gooner.
Well said Harry, and without a focal point in attack to hold up the ball for us it made it double hard. there were some real heroes out there yesterday, some you’ve already mentioned, but i though Winks had his best game in ages, chasing down and winning the ball back several times. I like the new boys, Lo Celso is going to be great fos us, and Ndombele, when fit, will terrorise other teams..
A little piece on VAR from the World Game team at SBS here in Oz.
https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/var-has-turned-premier-league-into-the-hunger-games
Even Mike Dean gets a mention or three. May the odds ever be in your favour 🤣.