Former West Ham star Frank McAvennie has made it clear he thinks it was a mistake for Tottenham to sack Jose Mourinho and replace him with Nuno Espirito Santo.
Spurs made a strong start to the season under Nuno, winning their first three Premier League matches to sit top of the table, but came crashing back down to earth with a 3-0 defeat against Crystal Palace this weekend.
It seems a bit soon to be making big claims about Nuno as Tottenham manager, but McAvennie seems convinced that there are already signs that the club have made the wrong move.
Speaking to Football Insider, the the former Scotland international suggested that Daniel Levy should’ve kept Mourinho, even if there were issues between the Portuguese tactician and the players.
If that were the case, then it should’ve been the players who were sold, rather than Mourinho being shown the door, according to McAvennie.
“Why didn’t Mourinho get this kind of backing? He’s certainly a better coach than Nuno. That’s Levy for you,” he said.
“If there is a man to back at a football club it’s Mourinho. The players didn’t like him or something like that, then let him get new players.
“Jose is still one of the best coaches in the world and I think he’s doing well with Roma. It was a mistake to let him go.
“I still don’t get why they sacked him before the cup final, if anyone could win it he could.
“Tottenham would be better off if they gave Mourinho that money, I’m sure.”
Im expecting Everton to finish above us, Nuno away by end Feb, and Kane to be way off the scoring charts…. regards the Kane money it would likely have been spent 50-50 between players & debt… it actually wouldn’t surprise me if the option to buy Romero wasnt exercised… lets be honest by mid Jan he would likely of played less than half a dozen games & with us likely languishing in 10th… what would you expect Levy to do? The decision to sign an injured player for close to 50 million is truly baffling….
I agree sacking Jose in terms of its timing was strange and even in the unlikely event we’d won the cup we would be no further forward. Harry would still have wanted to leave and we would have qualified for the third tier trophy we are now in.
Our season was only saved by the goals and assists of Kane and Bale and one of them has gone and the other doesn’t want to be here.
In regards to selling Kane do you trust the clowns in charge to have reinvested the money wisely or perhaps at all given how Levy bleats on about how COVID has so affected us but apparently not the top clubs in England.
The facts are that under Levy the club may make money but will never be a successful footballing entity.
I don’t expect Nino to last he has a haunted look about him and Paratici and Hitchin I am sure will pass any footballing failures onto him to preserve their own jobs.
We have more pitches at the new stadium than we have centre forwards which puts into context how football is viewed by the hierarchy.
The problem was firing Mourinho a few days before a cup final… I mean who in their right mind would think you have a better chance in a one off game of having your team led by Mason over Mourinho? I think over the last 5 months or so Levy has made 4 major blunders. 1. Sacking Mourinho when he did 2. Not selling Kane & reinvesting the money 3. Believing Nuno was better to handle new signings than Mourinho, Benitez or anyone else 4. Not expressing any interest in Danny Ings..
It would have been the logical thing to do. Which is why Levy is an insufferable know it all, about a subject he knows nothing about…
Poch will return, possibly next summer.
I’ve said it so many times on here, we’ll always be a business and never a football club under our ownership. You only have to look at the owners at Liverpool, Chelsea, United & City (and Leicester) to see how badly run we are on the pitch. All of them back their managers, where ours have delusions of grandeur and believe we should be sitting at the top table.
Nuno is just a stopped gap until Levy can “convince” a top Manager to join. Didn’t work the last time, but wouldn’t be surprise if Nuno goes after one season.
There I 100% agree
To be fair a good manager isn’t going to completely change the style of football overnight – that just doesn’t work. You want to change things slowly with the team being fully drilled in the new changes before deploying them. So it will likely be a gradual change from Jose’s style to Nuno’s style.
We are seeing some changes already with the team being deployed further up the pitch rather than just sitting too far back, although teams will often revert when things aren’t goin well to previously learnt formations it is just human nature. Also – under Jose we played a back 4 but really a back 3 with the left back playing as a wing back. Under Nuno we bringing in Royal I think he is slowly changing it to a back 3 and both Tanganga and Dier can play on the right side of a back 3 pretty effectively.
It doesn’t matter- Nuno or Jose. The real issue is lack of attacking options. For example:
United- Ronaldo, Cavani, Sancho, Rashford, Greenwood, Martial, Lingard, Bruno, Pogba, Mata.
Spurs- Harry, Sonny, Stevie, Gil, Scarlett, Gio, Dele, Clarke, Lucas
You don’t need a PhD to figure out how this ends up.
While I am not a great fan of mourinho football the man who after many months replaced him plays similar football to him. Look at the roots of the club for the weeds not the flowers. Also beware of weeds pretending to be flowers in other words levy is the root of spurs failures on the pitch to win anything but still tries to maintain the sun shines from him and on him.
It was a mistake to sack Poch and not back him in the transfer window. You reap what you sow!!
Frank Anti Spurs McAvennie, what a surprise, the biggest mistake was employing Mourinho in the first place