Tottenham's Failure to Reckon With the Present Halted Their Future
Tottenham’s Failure to Reckon With the Present Halted Their Future
Daniel Levy’s decision to chase the past ignored the present and potentially wrecked Tottenham’s ambitions
Jose Mourinho will undoubtedly go down as one of football’s best ever managers. The Portuguese has won league titles in England, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and Champions League titles with Porto and Inter Milan. His total trophy count is staggering and it deservedly earned him the reputation as a “proven winner,” from the likes of Harry Kane.
Mourinho revolutionised English football when he arrived as the Special One in 2004. His rivalries with Arsene Wenger, Sir Alex Ferguson, Rafa Benitez and, later, Pep Guardiola are fond memories for anyone who grew up watching mid-2000s football.
That rivalry with Guardiola truly cemented Mourinho at the top of the game. His Inter Milan side defeated the Catalan’s great Barcelona team in the 2010 Champions League semi finals on the way to winning the treble. His move to Real Madrid only intensified the rivalry with the now Manchester City coach.
After leaving Real Madrid in 2013, Mourinho moved back to Chelsea where he won the 2014/15 Premier League title. However, six years on, that remains the last league title won by the 58-year old. His Chelsea side fell apart in the infamous 2015/16 title defence.
When Manchester United agreed to hire him as their new manager in the wake of Louis Van Gaal’s sacking at the end of that season, it was seen as a step up for the club looking to reclaim their position at the top of English football.
Man United CEO Ed Woodward decided to overlook the disastrous Chelsea season that saw Mourinho sacked by Christmas with his team sitting in a hugely underwhelming 16th place. The league win was still fresh in everyone’s minds and there was very little reason to think he couldn’t repeat that feat again.
At Chelsea he managed to build a league winning side with shrewd transfer business. The signings of Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas transformed the team from also-rans into dominant league winners.
Mourinho arrived at Old Trafford and it looked like he was going to do it all over again. The club signed Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
The Guardian predicted title success for the club, ranking them first in their Premier League preview for the campaign. And yet the Red Devils suffered a miserable sixth place league finish in 2016/17.
The Europa League and EFL Cup wins were enough to satisfy the United hierarchy, but they were well off the pace set by Antonio Conte, who replaced Mourinho as Chelsea’s next permanent manager.
Chelsea were back on top having earned 93 points and a then record of 30 victories in a historic league win.
According to Understat, that United side did underperform their xG and their xPts, which is in line with the narrative of that team. Despite a 25 match unbeaten run in the middle of that campaign, there were too many 1-1s and 0-0s to move up the table. They started that run in sixth and finished in sixth - perhaps the run that proves “unbeaten runs” aren’t always that impressive.
The xPts table for 2016/17 had United finishing in fourth, ahead of Liverpool and Arsenal. But flaws in Mourinho’s management were becoming clear as the modern game changed to a new style of structured and planned attacking moves to go with high intensity pressing and running to ensure greater defensive solidity.
The 2017/18 season did show promise for Mourinho. Out went Ibrahimovic due to an ACL injury during the end of the last campaign. In came Romelu Lukaku. The Belgian was the perfect signing for this Mourinho side. They had struggled to close out games with second goals. Lukaku had a reputation as a flat track bully, who scored plenty against the weaker sides but not so many against the top sides.
Manchester United has announced that Jose Mourinho has left the Club. We would like to thank him for his work during his time at Manchester United and wish him success in the future. #MUFC
While some saw this as a weakness of Lukaku’s game, this was exactly what Mourinho needed. United started that season superbly and quickly cemented themselves in a title race with their local rivals, now managed by Mourinho’s old enemy Guardiola.
But United faded early and in the end hobbled over the line for a second place finish. Man United finished the 2017/18 xPts table in fifth. They out-performed their xG, but more importantly they massively out-performed their xG against. David de Gea carried the side to a comfortable Champions League berth.
The 2018 World Cup saw the beginning of the end for de Gea’s peak as a goalkeeper and with that drop off in performance, United plummeted. The flaws in Mourinho’s side became very apparent and the wheels came off inside the dressing room just as quickly.
Mourinho’s abrasive man management style wore thin and ultimately Woodward took the decision to sack the man he hand chose to battle Guardiola for the Premier League title.
Most importantly, this was the first time Mourinho failed to win a league championship at a club.
This looked to be the end of Mourinho at the top level. Sacked in 2018, he struggled to find employment again as a manager throughout 2019.
Juventus, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Chelsea and Bayern Munich were all looking for new managers during Mourinho’s time of unemployment and yet none even thought to look into bringing in the two time Champions League winner.
Eventually, Tottenham Hotspur made the move after sacking Mauricio Pochettino in November 2019. Daniel Levy was reportedly sold on bringing in Mourinho after he made a sales pitch to the Spurs Chairman where he claimed the club had one of the best squads in England.
As outlined by Miguel Delaney at the time of Mourinho’s appointment, Spurs were “blown away,” by Mourinho’s strategy for the team and his ambitions.
“Mourinho told Levy and the Spurs hierarchy that he has spent his 11 months out of management developing a new football strategy and philosophy. He also stressed to them his Manchester United record proves he will promote youth – if he deems them to be good enough. Mourinho meanwhile laid out plans for recruitment, but insisted he sees Spurs as already having one of the best squads in the league,” wrote Delaney.
Yet, 16 months into his reign as Spurs manager, Tottenham look to be suffering from all the same problems as his United side did.
Turning on the players, humiliating European performances and the side playing dour and uninspired football - all the hallmarks of Mourinho’s last 12 months at Man United
Back when United won the Europa League, it required a run against many of Europe’s “lesser” sides. Victories over St. Etienne, Rostov, Anderlecht and Celta Vigo en route to a final against a young Ajax side was no breeze for the giant of Manchester United.
St. Etienne were the only side United beat by more than one goal, winning 4-0 over two legs. Rostov were beaten 2-1, Anderlecht took extra time and Celta Vigo were a last minute miss from going through on away goals. The football was miserable to watch as United struggled through a who’s who of Europe’s D-tier clubs.
The following year, Mourinho comprehensively lost to Sevilla in the Champions League round of 16. This was where he claimed such a result was part of the “football heritage,” of United, essentially wiping his hands clean of all the dirt that came with that embarrassing defeat.
Yet the recent loss to Dinamo Zagreb, having led 2-0 from the first leg, now looks to be the lowest point of Mourinho’s European football adventures.
“My players watch and watch and watch Orsic actions during his career. We prepare with the analysts clips with the qualities of every player. The goals that Orsic scored, I watched them all, my players they watched them all,” said Mourinho in the aftermath of the 3-0 second leg loss.
This was the crucial quote from Mourinho’s press conference. This was him once again removing himself from any responsibility from the result. He blamed the players for not following his instructions, as if that isn’t also an admission he can’t get his players to listen to him.
In the first game back from the March International Break, Spurs once again threw away a sure victory in the dying minutes. Relegation threatened Newcastle scored an 85th minute equaliser. This was the ninth time this season that Spurs conceded a goal in the last 10 minutes and the eighth time it had a material impact on the result of the match.
According to Opta, Newcastle’s xG of 4.3 is the third highest of any team in a Premier League game this season and easily their highest in the league since 2016-17
A damning statistic
Once again looking at the xPts table, the 2020/21 version has Spurs in 10th, behind rivals Arsenal. They are both over-performing in front of goal and behind it. The likes of Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min are powering Spurs towards a Champions League berth, but conceding so many late goals is going to cost them further.
The second season has always been Mourinho’s high point, even at his best. In the third season, things have almost always spiralled. At Real Madrid, Chelsea (the second time) and Man United it was explosive.
Mourinho’s stint has followed all the other patterns of his tenure at those clubs, Tottenham can’t afford to suffer through the third season. Their failure to remain loyal to Pochettino, despite his proven success at the club, only looks more baffling as Spurs continue to be held hostage to the Mourinho circus.
The draw to Newcastle was further proof that when the going gets tough, Mourinho will only look out for his own career. Regardless of the consequences, he will protect his reputation at all costs, including damaging his own players’ morale and even his clubs’ stability.
This most pointedly came during a question about why his Spurs team aren’t as good defensively as other sides that Mourinho managed.
“Same coach, different players,” said Mourinho.
“The point for me in this moment is to set up a team that can win but in the end a little bit of deja vu. I believe that many of these white hairs come with things I am not used to seeing in football matches in this level.
“But there are mistakes which I probably shouldn’t even call mistakes because they are related to qualities that players have. It was a bad result.”
Mentioning that the team’s failure to secure a victory came down to “qualities that players have,” is incredibly damaging. These were players who achieved a Champions League final in 2019, as well as multiple top four finishes under Pochettino.
Mourinho was once at the forefront of the game. But his time at Spurs is definitively showing that this is no longer the case - once again. If only there was any evidence to suggest to Levy that it could be possible that the man who won everything had lost his lustre.