Mourinho’s tropes: How to recognize and employ them, in order to target potential audience engagement See; arrogant, over-defensive, lost dressing rooms, unpopular, toxic, dinosaur, etc…
There are voices of dissent in the Tottenham dressing room according to Jack Pitt-Brooke for The Athletic (£) who suggests he has up-to-date gossip that reflects a mood of dissatisfaction broiling at Hotspur Way. I’m not sure Danny Rose would be in a position to speak out any longer, in fact, it would be just Daniel Levy’s to get him in to sign an NDA in exchange for seeing his contract out whilst busting moves on his X Box. My gut instance suggests that this stems from Dele Alli, in particular this part… “There is no plan to move the ball forward. The plan is to defend, boot the ball up to Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, and that’s it.”
It’s sad to see the decline in the editorial remit of The Athletic. Once the home of long-form analysis, we are now effectively being presented with HITC on steroids as your writers are focusing on following whatever the mood trends are on social media. Endless rejigs of The Athletic’s subscription model, plus this pandering to the white noise end of fan opinion suggests the sporting behemoth might have sight of who their Tottenham readership is, or might be.
Instead of recycling grudges against Mourinho, a critical analysis would spare a thought on not just the shambolic scouting at Tottenham, the ageing squad, and the extraordinary business of Levy leaving Pochettino swinging in the breeze over numerous transfer windows before the Portuguese landed, but the inevitable psychological deterioration that players will have to had to combat, playing in many instances for a side that in the wrong end of a decade has won nothing. All whilst reading from a card how fabulous the stadium is.
What’s more tangible that wheeling out Mourinho tropes for unthinking fans to cheer at are the overarching aspects of neglect and contempt that actually created this mess we find ourselves in now.
Martin Amis had a good line for writers, that they ought to always write for the top 5% of their audience. The idea being, of course, that one would then take the others with you on the path to enlightenment.
A practice that requires an abundance of critical thought and wit, but sadly for The Athletic that won’t happen with an editor standing over everyone, demanding greater levels of ‘reader engagement’.
Non achievement over 6 years is quite an achievement, but your happy to ditch Mourinho after 15 months?? Cognative bias is alive and well.
”In my head” as you so dimly put it is what is best for Spurs. Poch had 6 years to do what he did but you won’t have Mourinho here for more than 15 months and lumbered with a squad most of which is well past its sell by date? Stop trying to be clever, you’re failing spectacularly.
That’s the £64million point question. Or in Levy’s case, 2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps once his initial offer as stated above is rejected.
Nevertheless, if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got. Levy has that on his office wall so he thinks it’s his golden rule.
When Wet Spam got Dawson i was thinking ‘WTF’, i remember him being ripped to pieces at WHL when we won 4-0, but he has shored up their defence no end..
I don’t think Lt Columbo is needed to clear this one up!
Poch overtrained players, that’s not up for debate – the only exception being Bamidele who doesn’t let training interfere with his nutmeg masterclasses.
David Moyes has sorted it out with serial relegation defenders like Craig Dawson. We have three centre backs who played at the last world cup, as well as in CL finals and semi finals. Two of whom Mourinho wanted to bring to Man U for big money.
Exactly. I’ve done a better scouting job throwing a few names up after a brief skirt through the quality on offer in last couple years. What ARE they doing? Football not priority. It’s pitiful.
How much money would Man U want to sell Henderson to a direct rival, and where is that money going to appear from?
Only in your head does being a fan of Tottenham require fealty to Jose Mourinho.
Mourinho’s remit when he arrived was top 4. The bar had been set over the previous half decade.
The Man Utd defence were letting goals in for fun earlier in the season. there were lots of individual errors. Seems to be sorted now. I can believe JM does focus a lot (though not entirely) on defensive setup. The thing is, Spurs are still losing so many games through ‘individual errors’. You gotta think that when a lot of individual errors are being made something else is going wrong tactically or ‘mentally’. Solskaer seemed to sort that out at Utd… can JM sort it out at Spurs.
Too many “fans” seem to forget that fact.
Dean Henderson would be a must buy if it’s true which means that if we do go for him Levy will offer a tin of beans and a packet of bourbons (other types of biscuit are available) payable over 97 years.
Any must have player over the last few years we’ve been linked to or needed Levy failed to deliver.
Monsieur Sissoko saying the double sessions of Pochettino tired the team out in the end and now “A Mole” is saying they l-o-n-g for the good old days of double sessions and the current mob are too defensive.
Bamidele is this you?
Very true. Look at that guy Soyoncu at Leicester, who scouted him, and Jonny Evans, solid as you like, and Dias at City, how much more than Sanchez did he cost, but they pay the wages, and when those two big men play together for Southampton they look solid. I have nothing against Dier or Sanchez, but they just appear to have at least one clanger in them every game. I also feel a new No 1 goalie needs to be scouted, i heard something about Dean Henderson doing the rounds this morning..
One day” as in it won’t be as long as six years not to win anything. 15 months he’s been here.
One day
All very true H and your note on the shambolic scouting and how this is missed by so many people really bugs me. Who are our scouts? Where are they looking? What the hell are they doing? West Ham, Leicester, Southampton…they seem to find players before everyone else does.
Could we not find a scout that really cares for the club! Oh to have someone like Keith Burkinshaw who had the vision to bring Bill Nick back to the club as a scout, who in turned advised us to sign Galvin, Roberts and Mabbutt to just name a few!
So, let me just get this straight, this supposed journalist is claiming that a multi titled winning manager, one of the best ever, champions leagues, league championships etc, actually says to his team ‘Defend and lump it forward to Kane and Sonny’, and that this is his only tactical idea, and that he actually has someone from within telling him this??? hence why I no longer buy newspapers, and read rubbish on the internet, coz this guy is actually trying to convince people that this is somehow the truth… I may be being cynical here but i just feel like most journalists want to see Spurs destroyed, cannot stand that we have a world class manager who will get it right one day…