Jose Mourinho

[Escher]

I don't think I've ever had such ambivalent feelings about a Spurs manager. I honestly can't work out whether I want him to stay or go.

I'll help, "GO"

 

[ralphs bald spot]

I think what needs to be considered/understood is that Jose is limited by the playing staff, not his tactics or style of play.

Tonight being a prime example.
Maybe, just maybe, he knows that if we attack more, our defence and individual mistakes are going to cost us.
I think he’s clever enough to know that the fans haven’t been pleased with the style of football. It wouldn’t even surprise me to learn that he reads comments on this site. Tonight he opened it up a bit more.
Ultimately individual errors cost us, regardless of it being entertaining.

Perhaps his previous tactics were to help mitigate the risk of individual errors occurring?

He’s not stupid.

At times we play devastating football. Probably some of the most deadly I’ve seen us play.

But it comes at a cost. Do you think he’s happy with 1-0 wins? He’d want to batter teams. If he thought we could score 3-4 goals per game and concede maybe 0-1 goals per game then he’d absolutely allow us to do that.

Sorry but that makes no sense to me - if the strength of the side is going forward surely you look to use that ? aSurely you don't negate it by concentrating on patchng up your weakness which has in turn weakened the attacking play.

There has to be a balance and I think he went to far the other way concentrating on the defensive side far to much. The last two games the approach and aggression have been good and if he continues that way he can be a success . Sadly though we are playing City on Saturday and he may not have much choice in his approach on that one

 

[fortworthspur]

Okay? Has nothing to do with the point I am making.

what is your point - that JM doesnt rate him? He has 59 appearances since the start of 2019/20 - second only to Toby with 62.

 

[H-SF]

what is your point - that JM doesnt rate him? He has 59 appearances since the start of 2019/20 - second only to Toby with 62.

Who, Dier? The opposite lol. Maybe you are talking about Sanchez though. A poster was getting neg reps for responding to a post protecting Mourinho and singling out Dier, Davies, Sanchez, Toby and Doherty as awful defenders by saying that Mourinho earmarked one of those as a top target and gave contracts to two others. I was basically echoing this sentiment and suggested that there is concrete evidence that Mourinho has rated/rates 4 of the 5 scapegoated and hence to defect blame away from him and onto mentioned defenders is a bit weird.

 

[Athenspur]

Just find a manager for fcuk`s sake.
This squad deserves so much better than shipping 5 to a skeleton, disinterested Everton team.
Replace the cockerel with a headless chicken, and it`s about right.

 

[Joshua]

He, or any coach, won’t have a chance until better defenders and midfielders are recruited. Style of play was fine today. Got let down massively by individual errors.

 

[fortworthspur]

Who, Dier? The opposite lol. Maybe you are talking about Sanchez though. A poster was getting neg reps for responding to a post protecting Mourinho and singling out Dier, Davies, Sanchez, Toby and Doherty as awful defenders by saying that Mourinho earmarked one of those as a top target and gave contracts to two others. I was basically echoing this sentiment and suggested that there is concrete evidence that Mourinho has rated/rates 4 of the 5 scapegoated and hence to defect blame away from him and onto mentioned defenders is a bit weird.

no Sanchez has 59 appearances, and I think thats the one you said JM didnt rate. Sanchez also had more appearances than Jan last year and his replacement, Rodon, this year. I think JM rates Sanchez fine. If anything, it'll be Toby off this summer. He was more culpable tonight and whatever your opinion of Sanchez Toby is on the decline.

 

[ardiles&villa]

Just find a manager for fcuk`s sake.
This squad deserves so much better than shipping 5 to a skeleton, disinterested Everton team.
Replace the cockerel with a headless chicken, and it`s about right.

Just out of curiosity how is José to blame for tonight ?

 

[H-SF]

no Sanchez has 59 appearances, and I think thats the one you said JM didnt rate. Sanchez also had more appearances than Jan last year and his replacement, Rodon, this year. I think JM rates Sanchez fine. If anything, it'll be Toby off this summer. He was more culpable tonight and whatever your opinion of Sanchez Toby is on the decline.

What I was trying to say is that Sanchez is the only one out of the 5 mentioned that I believe may not have ever been rated by Jose. He clearly doesn't think he's a total dud but I've never got the impression he's been a preference of Jose's. Maybe I am wrong though. Ultimately it doesn't really matter and suggesting that JM rates Sanchez only reinforces my original point.

 

[Montalbano]

Just out of curiosity how is José to blame for tonight ?

This is bound to be entertaining.

 

[ZiggySpurs]

Just doesn't add up. Our squad is not perfect and does need addressing but when Jose came in he talked about the strength of the squad being one of the main reasons for taking the job. He added a few players he specifically earmarked in the summer on top of a board driven buys in Reguilon, Bergwijn and Bale. When the window ended I was seeing fans say it is our most balanced and complete squad ever. Granted that may have been an overreaction but it's just lazy to now say we have a dogshit 1/10 squad which we clearly don't.

I understand what you mean and you raise a good point. The thing is I'd say that people's opinions can change over time when evidence proves them wrong. After the summer window I thought we had an incredible squad that would challenge for top 4 easily and be favourites for the Europa League. I still think we can challenge for both but seeing the performances from some members of our squad, I believe there's improvements to be made before we fully click offensively while maintaining defensive stability. Opinions change both ways though, I was apprehensive about the Hojbjerg signing when it was rumoured because I hadn't seen too much of him to prove he'd be the solid rock we'd need. Now I think he's essential to our team and has earned his place as a constant starter and the next shirt I'll buy.

While we've improved the squad in some ways in the summer window, I'm now slightly annoyed we didn't go for a prime CB in Skriniar or Dias. Granted, they were out of our budget (especially with City's interest in Dias) and we'd made so many purchases in a Covid market. To ask for more than we got would be like asking for extra syrup on an already gluttonous dessert, but I can see why Mourinho highlighted a CB as a priority by the end of the window. In the end we got Rodon who I see as promising, but not of the quality we need right now to lead the defensive line.

On Jose praising the strength of the squad when he joined, that could be down to two reasons: a) he'd just joined and didn't want to ruffle any feathers off the bat (team morale or Levy) or b) he's seen a decline in the performances of those players which now requires improvements on them.

Either way, I don't think our squad is dogshit 1/10, but it's a squad which needs tweaks to get into full gear.

 

[Thewobbler]

Enjoyed the game. Shit defending from both teams. At least it wasn't boring. Can't blame jose for all the errors that were made tonight.

 

[Hans Moleman]

We lost to Everton who had to take off Calvert-Lewin, who didn’t have James Rodriguez and had a awful bench while we had a strong bench and people are saying we played well this isn’t Jose’s fault ?

Look at how low the standards are under the serial winner Jose ?

Only looking at it from one side of the coin though aren’t you mate. If we could’ve subbed on Lo celso for ndombele rather than bringing on winks I have no doubts we would’ve been too much for them at the end. Also if Kane was fit enough to have started we probably would’ve been 2 or 3 up after 30

 

[Ossie85]

I get that its easier to blame it on the quality of the players, but it's not them. It's Mourinho.
We've been outplayed by teams with players that wouldn't even start in our reserves.

We have a fantastic set of players. We could upgrade some positions, but we should be playing 10x better than what we've been playing in all of Mourinho's tenure. And I don't think it will change. It's how he sees football

 

[rez9000]

Might have been shit defending but at least we were progressive going forwards and it was exciting to watch.

I hope you can forgive those of us who don't really feel that's much of a consolation for losing.

 

[rez9000]

We have some right doughnuts in our fanbase, it's absolutely staggering sometimes

That's a vile calumny, Dan!

Doughnuts are pleasant.

 

[rez9000]

We played on the front foot and were enjoyable to watch. A nice change.

As I said above you'll forgive those of us who don't see that as much of a consolation for losing.

 

[rez9000]

You're coming across as a bit ridiculous tonight.

A bit???

 

[rossdapep]

He, or any coach, won’t have a chance until better defenders and midfielders are recruited. Style of play was fine today. Got let down massively by individual errors.

Exactly.

Imagine Nagelsmann comes in, the attacking approach would be relatively similar to tonight and he may alter the defensive positioning of our structure in some way. Yet, it wouldn't make a bit of difference because our defenders constantly shoot themselves in the foot.

So the way forward for me relies on two approaches.

1. Bring in a Nagelsmann and allow him to remould the squad with young potential that he's able to use in his system. But accept that the defenders we bring in may not be of the highest standard and may make mistakes.

2. Keep Jose and allow him to bring in a big CB of his choosing, sell those he doesn't want and perhaps bring in an under the radar one too.

Ive said it countless times but Jose likes to get the stability and platform down first before he throws caution to the wind. He wants to feel like he can trust his defenders to breed confidence with their structure. That way, when more players commit to the attack, the defending players use intelligence to ensure positioning is good and the midfielders are quick to recover.

Tonight, I saw a Mourinho style closer to its peak in terms of attacking play. Quick, incisive passes that move towards the front line as quickly as possible. That's how his Madrid team played.

Unfortunately we dont have the base because our defenders are not calm, they cant stay focused, they make too many bad judgements and now even our goalkeeper is becoming an issue.

Jose had the same problem at United. And its why he couldn't succeed there.

He tried to work on the structure first year with a set of defenders including Jones, Smalling, Rojo, Bailly (who kept getting injured), Shaw & Young. He had wishy washy results. Good in Europa, but poor in PL where they kept giving away goals because of concentration.

Second season he felt he had more of a platform, and allowed the attack a bit more freedom until they got beat by Huddersfield because once again their defenders showed naiviety. He then tried to keep a solid structure/deeper block for most of the rest of the season and thats why fans got tired.

In his final summer he was demanding a CB that could cure these issues. Not because he wanted to continue using the low block but because he wanted a dependable CB that would allow him to free up the attackers and midfield.

Its why Levy has to back him. I think we will regret it if we don't give him the CB he needs

 

[rez9000]

Ah cognitive dissonance, thy name is the Jose Mourinho thread!