Those of us that enjoy the benefits of critical thought know that this squad is a mishmash of Pochettino leftovers and rejects. Poor Gedson Fernandes was home before the postcards.
Mourinho versus the reality of being a Tottenham manager has finally struck home. That’s not a barbed dig at anyone, it’s a statement of regrettable fact, an awareness of just how low we’ve sunk. For me, football remains very tribal. Clubs can attempt to gentrify things, but that’s not the natural order of things. Being a fan of a certain vintage, West Ham is my biggest side (closely followed by Chelsea) when it comes to well-earned contempt, after decades of personally witnessing an endless series of despicable anti-Semitic activity against both my Jewish and non-Jewish friends. Therefore, if anyone ought to be fuming after failing to even compete against The Hammers this lunchtime, I’d consider myself someone who would be due a spot near the front of the outraged consumer queue right now.
Here then is my take on a few of Mourinho’s post-match comments, which come via the Press Association’s Jonathan Veal.
When you make mistakes you can say you deserve to be punished so when we made two defensive mistakes, especially the nature of the second goal, you deserve to be punished.
I’m actually losing my mind with this lot. I can’t play Toby Alderweireld every game because he’s 31-years of age. That said, I guess I should be relieved Mr. Levy didn’t leave me Jan Vertonghen as well while he was at it – he’s still only 33. Eric Dier actually asked to play in central defence, you wouldn’t know that by watching him, eh?
“Nine points is difficult. In the Europa League we are alive and is a window of opportunity that is open for us.”
All I can hope for at this stage is for us to keep being fed pub sides and hope that if this sorry lot were to be given another bite at a European final, some self-respect might kick in. Hope is all we have at this stage.
Mine and my coaching staff’s methods are second to none in the world.
A good spiritualist would struggle to get in touch with the remains of Pochettino’s Globetrotters. Mr. Levy didn’t bring us here to fix the taps, so if there is a leak, we won’t be able to solve that situation either.
You’d be bereft of ideas.
I’m still waiting for someone to make me that wedding cake 🍰
What’s the point of discussing a break clause when no other coach could do a better job?
Poch lost last again last night.
Let’s see about that when the ‘new manager bounce’ is over.
If we somehow beat City for the League Cup, and find enough form to get to the latter stages of the the Europa (semi or final), and finish… 6th in the league, do you think he’ll go?
I don’t.
Yep, he’ll pay good money for a bit of window dressing (Jose, Bale etc) but when it comes to anything of real substance there very little going on…
I take your point. Personally though, I think much of that that was for the cameras.
Levy knew that sacking a Poch after not allowing him to rebuild would be fairly unpopular so he made it look like he’d finally got the guy he always wanted in Jose. The unemployed for over 12 months Jose I might add, and not the Jose of a few years ago.
Levy will day and do anything to front up the investment company pretending to want to be a successful football team…
That’s the real question, isn’t it? Which quality manager would want to come to Spurs of all clubs in a covid financial meltdown? Levy does seem prepared to pay good money for a key man in an organisation (including himself) but there is very little support underneath that.
Lampard was cheap to get rid of and Abramovitch is prepared to spend when it is needed. Those are the biggest differences in our situation.
We just need couple really good defenders that’s all. I can’t see what all the fuss is about.
You would have thought Levy would normally make any contract water tight, but after watching the Amazon documentary, he appeared to be a little star struck.
He’s staked a lot on Mourinho.
The defensive unit ain’t good enough. It’s that simple. Nothing wrong with the rest of the team (winks a side) levy would rather get the players José wants than to get rid of José.
I don’t mean a break clause but surely if you aren’t doing your job to the level expected then it would be fairly risky for any club to not write something in?
Anyway, Jose looks like he’s looking for the sack now, so Levy had better cough up innit…
Eight up votes for you pretty much means you’ve nailed it.
Poch said loads of things that clearly outlined the issues at the club, anyone who won’t acknowledge that must be in a state of complete denial…
According to all reports, there isn’t a break clause.
It will cost Spurs £30m to part company.
Then add on the rest of the coaching staff.
I think you’ll find that unless results improve, anything else will be totally irrelevant…
I suspect that the terms of any early break in Jose’s contract will be performance related. No Champions League qualification then he’s paid out less than full whack.
This must be common place in managerial contracts and the idea that any club ‘can’t afford’ to fire an underperforming manager just isn’t logical…
Jose and Levy hasn’t worked out, time to deal with it rather than remain in denial…
LEEEVEEE…
100% ENIC’s fault, all of it.
Jose does look bereft of ideas though, and you’d expect a basic level of functionality at the very least given his reputation. However, my take on it is that both he and the players have given up and that the realisation that the ENIC ‘road map’ actually leads nowhere.
Other than to an offshore account in the Bahamas and some rearranged Guns n Roses gig at the shopping centre…
He’s not going to be sacked, Levy can’t afford it, and the players are largely to blame for the position we are in.
But we also have to question what he’s serving up for £15m a year.
Look what David Moyes has done with a cast off defender from Watford, their worst player apparently.
Mourinho is totally the wrong fit for Spurs, but we can’t even afford to get rid of him now.
Son knows Levy is a complete carnt by now…
The season is doomed, if Levy is going to pull the trigger he might as well get someone in now who might be able to get something going with a run up to the summer to assess the squad. Mind you, I’m struggling to think of anyone decent that we’d get with Baldy running things.
Rodgers surely wouldn’t come, he’s rebuilt his reputation at Leicester. Why go to Spurs and be made to look a failure?
Honestly, I found the whole process surrounding Jose’s appointment both surreal and bizarre in equal measure.
You’re right he came in saying all the things you’d expect Levy to want to hear basically; “you don’t need to spend much money Mr Levy, this squad is fantastic. A few minor tweaks and everything will be where it was 18 months ago, trust me”
We’ll never know what motivated either man to team up with the other. My hunch is that Levy wanted someone box office for the Amazon thing as a deflated Poch and his staff probably were no longer much fun to be around, particularly after the sham of a transfer window that followed the final.
As for Jose, no better offers? Bored with the punditry after over a year? Desperation to work and work in London if possible?
It was simply never going to work…
Good blog Harry
Jose needs to stay. We cant let the media hound him out
Is this the crack in the Jose facade or you still think he the right man?
Pretty sure Chelsea fans would disagree with you on that one, Fat Frank wasn’t exactly setting the world alight. They’ll finish top 4 with Tuchel, were looking midtable at best under the over-promoted nepotism baby, the wildly out of his depth, spoiled brat Lampard.
Changing managers solves nothing, it’s just rearranging the deckchairs.
Jose should be respected for what he’s done in the game but there is no dynamism to his methods anymore. Every dog has its day.
At this stage of his career, trying to make it work in Levy Land was always set to fail. He must have been desperate to even take the job…
He’s given up, for whatever reason arose knows that this Spurs fingy will bring nothing but a dead end.
We are doing rather well in the Ropey while we play teams that are one up from semi-pro level. When the big boys become the teams before us do we expect to do any better if we lose constantly in the domestic league?
I knew Jose wasn’t going to work out, for one reason or another and there are a plethora of reasons.
a total east of everyone’s time, but hey, that’s what ENIC have been doing for 22 years and counting anyway…
I’m afraid José is a busted flush. The blame can’t possibly lay solely with the players for a fall from 1st to 9th, from one of the best defensive records in the league to looking absolutely shot to pieces at the back within the given time frame. He seems obsessed with building a power base in the dressing room rather than getting the most out of the squad as a whole which is just a divisive approach.
Mourinho is another Levy ego signing just like the Bale loan move. For a club supposedly competing with less financial clout than clubs in the top 4 (which we are way off on current evidence) it is utterly ridiculous watching £200+k a week walk out the door on Bale plus Mourinho’s insane salary.
There will be no funds in the summer without cashing in on Kane and Son for a low price in a broken, post Covid market. At which point we can expect Hitchen to be tasked with sealing some bargains rather than buying appropriate players at the top of the game. WHAT A MESS
He himself said he inherited better player than Man U – you calling him liar blud?
Jose knew what he was taking on. He said the team was good enough. Was he lying just to get a job? Did he not analyse the performances of the team before he took the job? Was he just being polite? Did he believe what he said – but somehow couldn’t get the tune out of them he thought he could? None of these, if true, reflects well on Jose. I’m still holding out a faint hope he can get ‘one cup’, which would be just about good enough this season … and then he can get in a couple of decent signings and turn things around. (Eternal Optimist)
I’m still waiting for Harry’s positive resolution…
And as we said for a long time, there is only one constant….
Yep I think so
Poch got a free ride from far too many fans, as he was trying to be ‘professional’.
Now Mourinho is going the same way. Except far too may fans loathed him before we kicked a ball in his reign.
The squad is essentially diseased, only when Kane and Son run will the penny drop.
ENIC achieved this.
Unfortunately THFC is carrying a huge debt, there will never be funds to create a challenging team. Enic will survive post covid as the premises will generate income from the different income sources. THFC is just one more cost centre of the TH Stadium not the sole benefactor of investment.
It has to be said , the real problems began in the Poch era when the squad was not freshened up, rot set in, we stopped evolving and progressing and players began to rest on their reputation. Look at the players we could have signed but didn’t, then last summer there was a realisation of how much change was needed . But Bale, Vinicius, possibly even Rodon , it’s obvious that Jose did not choose these players , he probably doesn’t even want them and he certainly isn’t a Dele fan. Where does it go from here? Anybody’s guess. But the rot… the rot was the reason that Eriksen left, and we simply have not signed a replacement capable of creating what he used to. Do we wait until the League Cup Final to see if we can win it and change that mentality amongst the players? 5 hours ago I thought , yes , definitely. But we could sneak it , and being Spurs, we could get tanked. We will not get Brendan Rogers, I’m sure of that. Is Allegri already bound for Madrid. Who TF knows. One thing I do know, we should be ashamed being 9 points behind a mediocre functional David the 1990’s coach Moyes team. How the fcuk did we get here.
Humiliation is on the cards on all fronts
The way it is now theres a defeat in the final, city have absolutely flown for a few months now and they are gonna take some stopping, I don’t see these lot doing it. 1 decent outfit in Europe will finish us there as well. Theres enough pundits saying the same thing about how it’s going now, I highly doubt they are all wrong
Hi Tappa. The problem is in these unprecedented times I’m not sure Levy will invest the money necessary to bring in a new (and much needed) spine to the team. He hasn’t done so when the stadium was full of paying fans so I can’t see him doing it now. The risk is he cashes in on Kane and/or Son to generate funds.
We are still in Europa and league cup. I think top 4 is out of reach now. So two questions. Which do you really think we can win (either, both, neither) and will that really be enough? For me… Us on song (though that seems a far shout right now) could do both. Personally, anything less than the Europa is an epic failure now. I really don’t buy that “it’s all the players” as a few months ago we would not have taken many West ham players, if any at all, yet now supposed to believe we have a mid table squad.. There is more to this mess than just the players. I digress… What will we win… What is acceptable to class the season as not a dismal failure.
For the record…Poch won nothing, but got us top 4 every year, and CL final… The measure of success is trophies, but how many of you wouldn’t swap where we were then to where we are now (far far below West ham!)
The reason it was a dead team tho was that if you recall poch said we need to act like a big club, not miss out on a couple of transfer windows etc. I don’t think theres a single top manager would take that job now. That year or so of sitting still has hurt the club beyond words. I get it you like Jose, thats fine thats up to you, but I don’t see a single improvement anywhere. I despise losing to them lot but to play like they did for 45 mins is unacceptable
Hand billionaire City the title now. Why not? They can have a socially distanced title winners party🤑😷💩
I hope that they would make it public tho so that the fools that believe levy has the clubs best interests at heart get to hear it from the best front two around. As I said on an earlier post I have no faith in Jose, the same noises that were made at the end of his time at its are being made now and that won’t end well. But I agree with the point it really doesn’t matter who you bring in to try and manage the club, it is about as near as can be to mission impossible
Josés tottenham time here has been in unprecedented/uncertain times. Working with the dead team poch left him. It took klopp longer to get his team moving. If it was someone else other than José most would understand this. Levy does and won’t sack him. He needs his spine of the team.
Probably not even Mourinho. I expect he knew .
It’s not dragging Poch anywhere – he made his thoughts crystal – change my job description!
Surely it’s vital none of us lose sight of the rubbish in the squad, the damage they did to the previous gaffer?
You can howl at the moon – Levy caused both these gaffers and many more prior to this – to fail.
The dressing room was lost by Daniel the moment Kane and Son realised nothing was ever going to change.
Sonny has been declining Daniel’s offers to review his current deal since before JM arrived.
They are off.
Who has tried to change levy at th€ n€w lan€?
Jose couldn’t change Levy. Of course not, nobody can. Going back and looking at fans summer expectations after the window, which was hailed as a success somehow….Bale was coming in talking of winners etc and Jose was seen to be taking things by the scruff of the neck….
I never understood the optimism. Reguilon and Hojberg were good additions but Bale was NEVER going to work and the other signing was a player of Championship and league 1 experience on the whole in Doherty who wasn’t even young. The window was more misdirection and PR. Nothing will ever change with Levy/Lewis involved. Its in fact getting worse. The stadium was a ridiculous undertaking and totally destroyed Poch’s chances of taking that side to trophy’s. Now the team and manager which had fans excited in the summer is drifting down to 9th and showing no sign of recovery. It’s all been said before, nobody can work under these conditions. Why would anyone think it would be different this time?
Your being to kind. Hes not paid 15m a year to lose his mind, this isn’t a charity, we all know these lot ain’t good enough but the point is its his job to get the best out of them. The constant dragging of poch into it is pointless. Hes been here a year and a half nearly. Whats improved? Theres a truthful answer and a self deluding one. Would not surprise me to discover in years to come he was another manager fed a load of poo by our leader, but at the end if the day trying to distance himself from any blame ain’t exactly gonnahelp get a dressing room inside again