It seems I live in a cocoon of some sort because I actually think that Jose Mourinho has done a good job but any proof put forward or opinion is disparaged.
Comments on here, on Social media or Youtube have swotted away what he has actually achieved and minimised what the Portuguese has done for the club.
He even gets criticised for celebrating finishing in sixth and gaining a Europa League spot.
When Mourinho took over the club was in free fall, yes they were only a few points behind certain teams and yes Mourinho has only closed the gap slightly on top four but that is to assume that Tottenham was playing as well as the teams in the top four, they were not, they were miles behind and to close the gap at all and not see it extended is an achievement in my book.
The injuries that Mourinho had to cope with were immense, far more than any other team in the Premier League. Some clubs lost high profile players for sure but not the amount Tottenham did at the same time.
TalkSport just stuck out a table of where Tottenham would have been since Mourinho took over, they would have been fourth, above Chelsea and Arsenal.
Tottenham have won four and drawn two of the final six games of the season, the defence has improved significantly conceding just three goals in that sequence.
Has the football been dire? yes it has on occasions but entertaining football has hardly worked this season and at the end of the day it is results that matter.
The way Tottenham were playing when Mourinho took over indicated that there was little hope of getting into Europe, the season already looked dead and buried but a winner never gives up and under the circumstances qualifying for next seasons Europa League is more than I expected.
Under Mourinho, we had some shockers but we also beat Man City, Arsenal and Leicester City, results that gave us some pride back.
Even Harry Kane is scoring goals and there were some that reckoned that Mourinho’s style will kill Kanes game (TeamTalk), well, that has not happened.
In my opinion, Mourinho deserves more respect than he is getting, he is a results man and he has delivered and that is what Tottenham need now, not entertaining football but a winner, someone that delivers and Mourinho has proven that he still has what it takes.
Put it this way, if you would have offered me Europa League, beating Arsenal and finishing above them when Mourinho took over I would have taken that in a heartbeat because the way the team was at that stage none of that looked remotely possible.
The whole thing had gone rotten under Poch in the end because of the neglect by Levy. As a result Poch had to rebuild again but wasn’t given time or the resources to do so. If he had any energy left.
Of course, Jose has tightened up the defensive side by sitting deep etc. This has meant we’ve stabilised, but nothing more at the moment.
We will have to see, however I can’t see that 29% possession at home is going to work in the longer term at a club like Spurs. If things begin to look better and easier on the eye, who knows it might all come together somehow.
Right now, I’m thinking that what we’ve this season has been unimpressive, under both managers. So no, right now I don’t see Jose as some bright new dawn. Just an exercise in picking up points any old way, and incidentally not enough points to make the top 4 either…
Fair?
Fairness and competitive sport are not bedfellows.
Get with the new mindset. Excuses dont cut it. Winning.
Leicester looked pretty and lost. We won.
Weve had 5 years of looking pretty and not getting anything.
Jose and Spurs are gonna win stuff. Being cun7s. Intelligent not stupid cun7s
Negging mourinho is an easy target for the permanent spurs moaners, of which there are a plenty. Some people just can’t get over losing Poch, but lets be honest, Jose is no worse than anyone else they could have put in charge, plenty were calling for Eddie Howe at one point, anyone think he’d have gotten a tune out of this lot now?
Well I hope I’m wrong , but I see signs of Mourinho favouring some players at the expense of others, and freezing them out , whether that is personal or them just not towing the line, I don’t know.
I want him to win though, but he needs a squad not just eleven to achieve something.
“and that is what Tottenham need now, not entertaining football but a winner.” My response to that quote Bruce, is why can’t we have entertaining football and a winner? Why are we following the path that Spurs can’t win with good football, is it because it didn’t work with Poch? That makes no sense. Liverpool didn’t change their philosophy much when Rodgers’ time had come to an end. Man City became more attacking after Pelligrino left. Lampard and Ole have got their teams attacking more. Leicester, despite having a smaller squad than ours nearly managed Ch Lg with attacking football, whilst capitulating and finishing above us. To state the Spurs players weren’t good enough to attack is doing them a great dis-service because they were used to it, Mourinho spent 4 years coaching the philosophy at Barca and we certainly didn’t look like we could defend for 23 of Jose’s 26 league games (I’m ignoring Ch Lg and FA Cup)! This isn’t me hating the club (I despise ENIC) or diluting any success you think we achieved yesterday, but Levy has pulled a master stroke by getting Jose to spin what has taken place.
Most of us here aren’t anti Mourinho but anti Levy and ENIC, that’s a huge difference. Nobody is saying Jose isn’t a good manager just that, like his predecessors before him, he won’t be supported in the transfer market. It’ll all end in tears with Levy, it always does.
Having said that our brand of football since the restart has been patchy to say the least. Initially before lockdown there was a good excuse because of injuries, latterly that has not been the case. Yet some of the games against pretty weak opposition have been little short of grotesque. Hopefully we can reinforce in some positions because we certainly need to id Jose wants to improve us. He doesn’t have a magic wand. One slight worry for me is he’s always been supported in the transfer market by free spending chairman. That ain’t gonna happen here.
You still have to beat them though. Would we have done that with Poch in charge?
This is a great post, Bruce, one I completely agree with. Yes, we had a few poor games (Sheff Utd/Bournemouth/Crystal Palace), but we only lost on of those and if Poch’s reign had continued, we’d have fallen further from grace. Jose seems to have buy-in from the players and I have no problem with his stance over NDombele as he sees more of him than we do. I know we won’t get a lot done with Gollum in charge of the transfer kitty, but I can see Jose significantly improving what we have. Let’s give him a full season in charge with some (hopefully) signings and then see what happens. COYS!!
The Leicester game comprised of a team that had lost it’s entire defence for one reason or another, and was in a very poor run. Hardly a fair comparison.
Maybe he’s thinking about his real opportunity to win his next trophy in Europe, ain’t that something to celebrate?
That Leicester win & performance was such a progression for our team.
Every semi final or final appearance over the last few years we’ve been Leicester in those games, playing pretty football, but in the end losing, remember the Chelsea Semi, played the better football, but in the end lost 4 – 2, remember last year’s final, was passing the ball so well in first half, but end up losing.
If we want to win & win trophies that Leicester performance is how it has to be done in certain games until he can strengthen us to play a more expansive game, the Spurs way.
Maybe that can happen after he proves he can win this time next year?
We all would like to see us playing like we did in his first few games where we played with freedom & scored goals, obviously without conceding so many, but that takes time, took us time under Poch, took Pep time at ManCity & took Klopp time at Liverpool.
So be patient, Mourinho knows what he’s doing & how he’s gonna do it.
I bet he can’t wait to prove everyone wrong again.
I imagine it raised eyebrows among hacks as much as anyone else who saw it.
We got them at a good time,no Chillwell,Pereira,Maddison or the regular CH that plays every game beside Evans whose name escapes me.If they had the three defenders who were missing I doubt we would have been hitting them on the break as easily. It’s the same when we got turned over by a few teams when we had Kane,Son,Sissoko and Bergwijn missing.
Lobotomy instead please, what’s that? Oh yeah he has had one already.
Jose managing the media.
Positivity as opposed to the talk that he had lost the squad already in March.
Jose is smarter than the hacks. And Ole, Frank,Brendan and Mikel.
Jurgen and Pep are Joses only peers.
COYS
Its taken a while but Bruce gets my respect with this blog post.
Who shouted ‘who cares’?
The Leicester game was a perfect example of Jose football. We would have been on the end of that spanking in any previous seasons. Instead Leicester looked pretty and Spurs WON.
Kane and Son can single handily destroy teams. Jose will utilise this.
Back Jose.
COYS
Looked cynically pre-arranged as a final shot for the Amazon documentary. Intended to leave the viewer awed by what has been achieved.
🌚
On a side note, I think Jose and his tam were celebrating because they activated the “Qualify for Europe’ bonus that Danny failed to quantify as being Champions League in their contracts.
I’d agree with the anti-ENIC sentiment – hopefully more fans are waking up to the charade fronted by Levy and start to voice their displeasure. Like it or not ENIC are here to stay while the stadium is making money for them and funding their local property portfolio.
Pretty well summed it up on all fronts,I agree while he’s our manager give him the benifit of the doubt.Lets see what next season has in store with a few changes.He after all ,got the same players to respond to his his way of thinking.Toby,Dier,Skipp and now Tanganga have given their vote in signing new contracts and must be okay with the money Levy offered.Ledley also coming onboard is a good sign.
Our chairman needs a good lube too.
No more trolley jack road side fixes. She’s on the trailer on her way back to the workshop. Total strip down lump&gearbox out. She don’t need a rebore.
A lot of the anti Mourinho stuff is actually anti the board/chairman and the baggage of being an ex Chelsea manager who inflicted a lot of defeats on Tottenham, and some fans can’t warm to his personality. That Spurs being in fourth place is pretty tongue in cheek, I hope, if it’s serious then it’s up there with that famous stat where over two seasons around 2015/2016 Spurs had 138 points, more than Man City with 127. You can see the trophy for that in the board room. He’s the manager so I back him but you can understand why a lot of people find it hard to believe that going on past history the board will provide him with the resources to win the Premier League.
I have to admit that I wasn’t overly excited when Jose took over the reins. Not because I was a Poch fanboy (Poch had reached his ceiling and was clearly on the way down this season) but because of the spectre of Jose’s past managerial departures that seemed to accompany him. Discord, disunity, division and denial seemed to be trademarks of his.
I now have to say he has demonstrated his ability to get results even if it hasn’t been pretty and with a threadbare squad at times, to finish 6th is a good outcome. We beat Arsenal and condemned them to another year of finishing below us. What’s not to like? VAR also gave us some pretty diabolical decisions that turned games against us or took away our momentum. Mourinho had a dig but got on with it. It does look like he is in a better space mentally than previously but then he hasn’t had to go through a Levy transfer window, so it will be interesting to see what happens over the coming months.