Jose Mourinho has inherited a Tottenham team that failed to build on reaching the final of the Champions League last season.
The Lilywhites have been struggling for form this season and they risked finishing very low in the standings before the club decided to sack Mauricio Pochettino and made Mourinho his successor.
The Portuguese manager is one of the most successful managers in the world, and he has been tasked with ending Tottenham’s wait for a trophy.
Despite reaching the final of the Champions League last season, they are on the brink of missing out on a place in Europe for next season.
Mourinho has won the Champions League and Europa League among other trophies in his illustrious career and the former Chelsea manager is targeting next season’s Europa League.
He has told his players to win their next two games and they would win the Europa League next season, but he is also being careful not to demotivate his players because they will be playing in the Europa League and not the Champions League.
Mourinho said as quoted by Football.London: “I could think of it as some matches where we play at home in the best stadium of the world will have and, if Boris allows, some spectators but not the full emotion of a big Champions League match, we need to motivate ourselves.
“As I said – I have won the Champions League before. The majority of my players have played in the Champions League final before. Others, they did not win it but they were constantly playing at the Champions League level. So we need motivation.”
He added: “I don’t want my players to be disappointed with the fact we play Champions League. I want my players relaxed because they had a big target. It was almost impossible to do it from months ago.
“But I don’t want the players to be affected by this disappointment but this is a way to motivate the troops.
If they think, ‘Oh, next year I have to play in the Europa League! There could even be a qualification in the middle of September! Oh! I don’t want to do that.’
“But if we say, ‘Come on, next season we are going to win the Europa League’ – that is a different feeling.
Well, that is clear, Mourinho is not taking any prisoners, he is determined to qualify for the Europa League and wants to win it next season.
That does make a change, too often Spurs have taken the domestic competitions and Europa League far too lightly and if we are in it, we should try and win it and it seems that Mourinho has the exact same attitude.
Interesting take on the EL you can see why he is a winner.
Not sure you are going to win anything with Winks & Sissoko (I have already said goodbye to Aurier) but if anybody can JM can.
Liverpool weren’t finishing off the best stadium/ money maker in the world. You can’t compare the two. They were just tarting up a stand.
Two are. Gedson was just a punt. (Can see him going back) Jose using his Portuguese connections. Poch never used his. In 5.5 years only 3 Argentinian players brought in. (One was a goalie) Jose brought a fellow country top boy in within 5.5 months.
We have never had a squad big/talented enough to play in up to 5 comps, in the end they burn out. As has been proven time and time again. Not the managers fault, levy’s fault.
Mourinho has realised just how badly the players were affected by the CL failure and the Poch mindset, which probably has been his most difficult problem to solve. It’s something he has to change to have a chance of achieving what he wants.
Liverpool showed how you build on a defeat in a Champions League Final, you bring in world class players. We brought in Lo Celso, N’Dombele and Gedson. Time will tell if they are world class.