Jose Mourinho

[Shadydan]

Not sure if anyone posted this...


View attachment 82159

What he meant was this

 

[SpartanSpur]

When you find yourself agreeing with a Paul Merson hatchet job you know you are in trouble

Paul Merson questions Jose Mourinho's use of Gareth Bale, who looks 'a shadow of his former self'

Paul Merson on Gareth Bale: When they are 1-0 down and he doesnt come on, whats the point in having him as a sub? He was a great player. I dont like using great loosely, but he was top draw. He was a real good player, but he looks an absolute shadow of that now.

www.skysports.com

 

[TheHoddleWaddle]

Our fanbase has been hoodwinked by Kane and Sons goals into thinking that we are as good or have the potential to be as good a the halcyon days of Poch.

The problem is that Dembele and Wanyama are now Sissoko and Winks .

Ideally it would be Ndombele ( AWOL for a year) and GLC (for me jury is still out) but for the most part it has been Sissoko and Winks or at least one of them.

Kane and son have masked the fact that we have a completely dysfunctional engine room.

Barcelona dominated Europe with average defenders because they didn't give the ball back to you , Man City have been getting away with it too for the most part.

We however can't keep possession AND have crap defenders. So the other team has loads of the ball and our defenders are called into action and caught with pants down more often than not.

Mourinho is not covering himself in glory at all, but whoever comes in still needs the spine of a team. A CB you can hang your hat on and one or two competent midfielders who can take the ball on the half turn and put a bit of shape on a pass and score a few goals. Honestly id take Charlie Adam of a few years ago over Sissoko and Winks.

City have stones and one of the best defenders I've ever seen in Ruben Dias at the back....just to be a pedant.

 

[WannaDanceWithUdogie]

 

[commodoreLUNGE]

Nice post . It's an absolute mess at the moment and it's not a case of just blaming the manager or the players. They're all responsible for the way we play. We've got players who for whatever reason can't follow the managers instructions. What does he do about that? Does he keep playing them and hope that it clicks, or does he drop them and potentially have more disgruntled players on his hands? And we're awful to watch at the moment so can he change the formation so that we're playing to our strengths rather than playing to protect our weaknesses, or does this style get the most out of our two best players when it clicks? Son and Kane were both on fire earlier in the season, but it's a lot of responsibility falling on their shoulders.

I don’t think the players can’t follow his instructions, I just think that they don’t believe in what he’s feeding them. How much commitment would you have to instructions from your manager at work if you truly believed deep down that there was a better way, but he didn’t want to consider it? Probably with less commitment than if you really believed in their ideas is my guess. Especially if that manager has alienated some of your friends at work.

Secondly, who do you drop and who do you bring in? No one seems really bought into this style of football. You end up with lower quality players on the pitch who are no more committed to the style than the ones that have been dropped.

There are a few exceptions. Kane and Hojbjerg have been excellent and fully committed. Lamela and Lucas, for all their faults and shortcomings, always give 100%. But I bet even if you ask these guys if they believe this is the very best way to go about playing football, you won’t get many (if any at all) positive responses.

 

[mrlilywhite]

Imagine comparing this ragtag bunch of players to the ones at Klopps and Peps disposal. LOL

Not the point I'm making is it. I'm not comparing a like for like, which of course I'm sure you know all too well. LOL

 

[spursfan77]

Dont normally like to promote talkSPORT but this is correct. Does Levy know how unhappy the fans are? He must do surely. Not that he’s ever cared about us before.

 

[C0YS]

You cannot say that Mourinho has failed as a leader whilst still giving Poch credit for being better at it when the exact same players gave up and got Poch sacked. Where were his leadership qualities then? Or how did they benefit us?

It's contradictory and just goes to show you simply cannot keep making excuses for these players anymore.

We have 6-7 players excluding youth who deserve their spot and give their all in this team but we have 15 or upwards that simply aren't good enough and those of you that think this will change with a 3rd manager will be in for a rude awakening. You cannot start games with 11 players but only 2-3 show up to play.

I am not saying they have been playing to the best of their ability and just can't cut it, they really seem to not give a shit anymore and haven't for a good 3 years now.

When are we going to stop making excuses for the players?

Look of course the players have some of the blame, and the vast majority of people can see this. However, there is bigger issue here which you can see, visually see that's not working and it's not hard things to fix. Either the manager is so bad at getting players to follow his instructions that we play an entirely different way than the manager wants, or the managers system isn't working.

Now the players do have to have a portion of the blame. With Poch as well, the players didn't give up, they didn't not consciously, maybe psychologically, it's just something was broken. Maybe Mourinho can fix the problem, but he has a lot of responsibility for our current form.

It's not either-or, it's also worth pointing out that the problems with Poch and the Jose are entirely different. And where does this 3 years crap come from, it's the second time I heard it. It's been two years, and we actually did very well at the start of this season and the end of last.

Honestly, it's like people are speaking through each other, nobody is saying the player's arent at fault as well, but this is the Mourinho thread, and my opinion the way we set up is asking for trouble and is the major cause of our problems. I was listening to five live for the game, we are more fun to listen to than to watch these days, and Clinton Morrison made these points so well, the fact that we are set up to invite pressure on ourselves. We do it every game. It doesn't take much to set up a team not to do that.

Now Mourinho might be able to turn it around, but a lot of these comments actually seem to be people annoyed that Mourinho is getting flack so then focus on the players being who should be blamed, and then claiming that people are not willing to accept are players are responsible and simply blame the manager. It's the creation of a fictitious argument and misrepresentation that very few if any people in this thread actually believe.

 

[jonnyp]

It's pretty incredible how quickly things have turned around from that initial period up to the Arsenal game. I knew we had frailties but even the things we were doing well have just disappeared over the course of the last 8 weeks.

It was so one-dimensional what we were doing. I said it at the time that we look absolutely clueless unless we are on a break with Kane and Son.

We have no other plan in the final third. Teams are working harder to mark and press Kane and Son now and if they have an off day or out injured then we are toothless and completely clueless. We have no other attacking plans or patterns of play to switch things up. That is down to coaching.

In addition we have a manager that insists on playing players who lack basic technical ability (Sissoko, Dier, Davies, Winks etc) and starts 3 CBs at home to Brighton.

Tanguy yesterday was trying to press all first half but he had no help from anyone so Chelsea just easily passed it around him. Complete waste of his talents and energy if we don't press as a collective. The press was better in the second half but the genius Jose then takes off Tanguy, when he actually could have contributed more, and lets Sissoko stay on...

There's been no improvement at all in our defensive abilities too. We are as bad as we have ever been defensively.

It's a complete shambles across the board.

 

[SpartanSpur]

Dont normally like to promote talkSPORT but this is correct. Does Levy know how unhappy the fans are? He must do surely. Not that he’s ever cared about us before.

He does care about the ones with a 'customer number' at least...

 

[beats1]

10 of the squad weren’t. Play your signings.

But that point is not a necessary part of the broader argument.

LOL where have you got 10 from, the fact is despite signing 10 players Jose has spent around 75m which is fuck all nowadays

3 on the pitch
7 off it???
Hart(back up GK), Bale(loan signing, who has struggled for fitness for 2 years) and Rodon (back up CB brought for the future), Doherty (RB signed who has been bad as of yet)

Also the majority of his signings have been backups or for the future. Only Doherty and Hojberg were brought in to improve the first 11

 

[handsomecake]

City have stones and one of the best defenders I've ever seen in Ruben Dias at the back....just to be a pedant.

I’m not talking about this year with city . Dias is a rolls Royce of a player.
When kompany was injured they had a clown show back there. Otamendi, Mangala, Danilo . Pep was ridiculed for how bad they were at the back.

 

[-Afri-Coy-]

Look of course the players have some of the blame, and the vast majority of people can see this. However, there is bigger issue here which you can see, visually see that's not working and it's not hard things to fix. Either the manager is so bad at getting players to follow his instructions that we play an entirely different way than the manager wants, or the managers system isn't working.

Now the players do have to have a portion of the blame. With Poch as well, the players didn't give up, they didn't not consciously, maybe psychologically, it's just something was broken. Maybe Mourinho can fix the problem, but he has a lot of responsibility for our current form.

It's not either-or, it's also worth pointing out that the problems with Poch and the Jose are entirely different. And where does this 3 years crap come from, it's the second time I heard it. It's been two years, and we actually did very well at the start of this season and the end of last.

Honestly, it's like people are speaking through each other, nobody is saying the player's arent at fault as well, but this is the Mourinho thread, and my opinion the way we set up is asking for trouble and is the major cause of our problems. I was listening to five live for the game, we are more fun to listen to than to watch these days, and Clinton Morrison made these points so well, the fact that we are set up to invite pressure on ourselves. We do it every game. It doesn't take much to set up a team not to do that.

Now Mourinho might be able to turn it around, but a lot of these comments actually seem to be people annoyed that Mourinho is getting flack so then focus on the players being who should be blamed, and then claiming that people are not willing to accept are players are responsible and simply blame the manager. It's the creation of a fictitious argument and misrepresentation that very few if any people in this thread actually believe.

You’ve made some fair points, and in my haste I did make it seem like the players are all to blame but I have said on numerous occasions that Mourinho is not without his faults.

Let’s say it’s time and Mourinho gets the sack. Let’s remember this team played possession, pressing football under Poch and for the last 12-18 months of his tenure they seemed to give up on that type of gameplan too.

We’d have 80 minutes of sideways passing and almost always got ourselves out of trouble with a moment of brilliance rather than actual team play. I can’t remember the last time we saw a nice pass and move goal from this team, it was probably at Poch’s peak which was 3-4 years ago. That’s where the 3 years come from.

It’s not like they can’t do it, it really seems like they can’t be arsed. That’s the problem. When your core players just aren’t up to scratch quality or effort wise, the rest of the team tends to follow suit. It’s human nature.

This is the football everyone including myself wants to see, and whilst I respect Mourinho’s approach it’s clearly had a short shelf life with these players and once again they need a New voice with new tactics and a new approach.

My biggest fear is that they revert to type after an initial uptick in form. This is where my frustration towards the players stems from.

 

[C0YS]

And again, we then return to the the same question: why then did they do the same to Poch?

We can keep going round this idea, but as yet, no one who seems to want to lay the blame at Mourinho's door has been able to come up with an adequate answer as to why it's happened to two very different managers in the space of three years.

It doesn't seem to happen elsewhere.

Chelsea change managers all the time. How come their players still seem to put in a shift?

West Ham - they may have been shit under Moyes, then Pellegrini, then Moyes again (until recently), but they didn't piss about on the pitch looking like their mothers had just been shot. They put in a shift.

Southampton got tonked 9-0 last season. What did they do? They pulled their socks up and worked and strove and put in the effort and dragged themselves back to their feet. Having been again tonked 9-0, I would, given the choice between which I thought more likely, Spurs to show gumption and get themselves back on their feet or Southampton, still put every penny I had on Southampton.

My God, Newcastle! They're managed by a man that huge swathes of people deride (not saying it's fair, just that they do) - do you see them refusing to put a shift in?

The key difference? The teams above, at the very least, have balls. Our poor little fragile egos don't 'believe' in the project? My heart bleeds! I can give them tens of thousands of reasons, every week, why their excuses should fall on the deafest of ears.

They need to pull their own socks up, not expect Poch or Mourinho or the next poor bastard who takes this poison chalice of a job to wipe their arses for them. They each need to grow a pair.

And as I've explained twice before they didn't do the same with Poch. I don't know what to say, I explained what I felt happened with Poch and I explained what happened with Jose, they are not the same thing, but also it's interrelated with faith in what's happening. Feeling something not working. But I think the players did give everything on the pitch to make Poch's vision work, it's just the vision wasn't working. Maybe we were a bit slow and ponderous but I don't think that was intentional.

I don't see how my answer isn't adequate you haven't addressed it at all, and just claimed I can't explain something that I have constantly. Namely, they are two separate incidents, with separate problems but fundamentally caused by tactical mistakes or inabilities and maybe the players did lose confidence in this and maybe should have been more patient but.

Chelsea players btw, are famous for intentionally undermining managers, particularly the successful team, it's pretty much an open secret that Terry could sack anyone he wanted and often did. So it's a very odd example to make. Chelsea players and west ham players all get criticised by their fans when things are bad, this isn't a unique tottenham thing. Maybe players should act better, and run more or whatever, but I don't think they go into a game with the mind to play badly, it's more complicated than that.

Southampton got tonked 9-0 because of the tactics of Hassenhuttl, and the manager offered his resignation and it was turned down, but the players believed in his project and great. But Hassenhuttl's strategy is entirely different and the players saw the logic of it and didn't turn against him.

I don't believe in the project, forget the players, and if it doesn't change I think we are in serious problems. Even if the players do everything well. If they pull their socks up you, as you say, do you actually think results would significantly improve unless we change something tactical? I don't think so. Yes there are motivational problem but these motivation problems are entwined with the way we set up. Like you can grow a pair all you want I'm not sure it will make much of a difference. The way we are set up is asking for trouble. Should the players be doing more? Yes. But belief in something is something subconscious it's not something you can control. It's an inevitability. If footballers were machines great, but they are not and bad form has an effect, confidence has an effect. But the manager has responsibility for this as well.

 

[dtxspurs]

LOL where have you got 10 from, the fact is despite signing 10 players Jose has spent around 75m which is fuck all nowadays

3 on the pitch
7 off it???
Hart(back up GK), Bale(loan signing, who has struggled for fitness for 2 years) and Rodon (back up CB brought for the future), Doherty (RB signed who has been bad as of yet)

Also the majority of his signings have been backups or for the future. Only Doherty and Hojberg were brought in to improve the first 11

Reguilon, Bergwijn. Not to mention Lo Celso & Ndombele hardly played under Poch.

 

[LeParisien]

You say it's not about individuals and yet your entire post is focused on a single individual and that person's perceived failings.

So it's about individuals when one can lay the blame at Mourinho's door, but if any other individual or individuals bear responsibility, then it's suddenly 'not about individuals'? That's not a robust argument, dude.

P.S. plus Disliking someone complimenting me is just pettiness. I've said how much I like debating with you, but if you're going to make it personal and dish out ratings to score points, if that's more important to you, then I'll just put you on ignore because it's not worth the candle.

Thank you for the compliment @-Afri-Coy- that was very kind of you to say.

First of all, respect is important. I don’t play passive aggressive games and I’m willing to justify any rating I give. I don’t know what post you’re referring to. Either my disagree was about another part of his post or it was an accident. Happy to retract or explain if you tell me what post.

I can be forthright but I think I’m humble too.

Mourinho has more influence on the playing talent than any other person at the club. He is paid big bucks in consideration. It is normal that he is held responsible for managing those players.

I don’t think we have a situation like France 2010 where scum bag players were running the show like Évra, Benzema and Ribéry. But even then I hold Domenech responsible for picking those players. Deschamps came in and said squad morale and certain standards of behaviour were a prerequisite. He got rid of the trouble makers and banned our beat striker by a mile (Benzema) before the euros. How we needed him in the final. He also worked with « notorious » folk like Pogba and has got the best out of him. Looks world class for France - in Deschamps words he needs minutes and love. Deschamps’ tactics are not a million miles from Mourinho.

All this is to say that senior leaders need to bear responsibility for the significant power they wield and use that power to shape outcomes for the collective. Many examples of managers doing that in difficult changing rooms. It was something that many thought Mourinho would do (a selling point if you will) but he has not managed to do that so far. There’s little evidence we’re moving in the right direction either.

 

[SpartanSpur]

You’ve made some fair points, and in my haste I did make it seem like the players are all to blame but I have said on numerous occasions that Mourinho is not without his faults.

Let’s say it’s time and Mourinho gets the sack. Let’s remember this team played possession, pressing football under Poch and for the last 12-18 months of his tenure they seemed to give up on that type of gameplan too.

We’d have 80 minutes of sideways passing and almost always got ourselves out of trouble with a moment of brilliance rather than actual team play. I can’t remember the last time we saw a nice pass and move goal from this team, it was probably at Poch’s peak which was 3-4 years ago. That’s where the 3 years come from.

It’s not like they can’t do it, it really seems like they can’t be arsed. That’s the problem. When your core players just aren’t up to scratch quality or effort wise, the rest of the team tends to follow suit. It’s human nature.

This is the football everyone including myself wants to see, and whilst I respect Mourinho’s approach it’s clearly had a short shelf life with these players and once again they need a New voice with new tactics and a new approach.

My biggest fear is that they revert to type after an initial uptick in form. This is where my frustration towards the players stems from.

So we should stick with Mourinho who is not getting enough out of the squad because this set of players will never achieve anything?

Yes the future does look a bit bleak right now when we look at the issues within the squad, the list of potential replacements and knowing covid has slaughtered our finances, but we have to try something. We are somewhere between 5-6th for resources in the league and there is a huge gap to 7th. Bare minimum should be for us to compete for European slots with that, even more so if we actually started to play some decent football.

I could see us allowing a rebuild for someone like Poch (had he not lost his head), but Mourinho doesn't feel like the guy for that. He doesn't have great form in recovering these kind of situations.

 

[beats1]

Reguilon, Bergwijn. Not to mention Lo Celso & Ndombele hardly played under Poch.

Bergwijn started and was brought as a back up to Son/for the future and Reguilon didn't play and has been brilliant so far

Ndombele guess, what, hardly played under Mourinho until this season and Lo Celso has yet to be fit for a good run of games yet

 

[Pistols At Dawn]

Paul Merson questions Jose Mourinho's use of Gareth Bale, who looks 'a shadow of his former self'

Paul Merson on Gareth Bale: When they are 1-0 down and he doesnt come on, whats the point in having him as a sub? He was a great player. I dont like using great loosely, but he was top draw. He was a real good player, but he looks an absolute shadow of that now.

www.skysports.com

He's not wrong.

 

[C0YS]

You’ve made some fair points, and in my haste I did make it seem like the players are all to blame but I have said on numerous occasions that Mourinho is not without his faults.

Let’s say it’s time and Mourinho gets the sack. Let’s remember this team played possession, pressing football under Poch and for the last 12-18 months of his tenure they seemed to give up on that type of gameplan too.

We’d have 80 minutes of sideways passing and almost always got ourselves out of trouble with a moment of brilliance rather than actual team play. I can’t remember the last time we saw a nice pass and move goal from this team, it was probably at Poch’s peak which was 3-4 years ago. That’s where the 3 years come from.

It’s not like they can’t do it, it really seems like they can’t be arsed. That’s the problem. When your core players just aren’t up to scratch quality or effort wise, the rest of the team tends to follow suit. It’s human nature.

This is the football everyone including myself wants to see, and whilst I respect Mourinho’s approach it’s clearly had a short shelf life with these players and once again they need a New voice with new tactics and a new approach.

My biggest fear is that they revert to type after an initial uptick in form. This is where my frustration towards the players stems from.

I think a lot of people are shouting through each other right.

On Poch you are exaggerating that length of time, the form starting to drop off in February and not helped by injuries. Poch himself stopped the hyperpressing game plan (like Klopp as well) at some point in his third season as it's not sustainable to press in such an extreme way. Poch himself gave up on the gameplan and he changed the way we build significantly with brand new system in 2019 that for whatever reason didn't work.

The sideways passing that you talk about was a tactical problem. Poch's teams have always built from the back and the idea is to play positionally, invite players a press onto you and essentially patiently find the spaces, normally via fullbacks so when the ball is pushed forward you have more space. Now what happened was people learnt how to box us in, and problems emerged there, things got worse with time for various reasons I won't go into, but the sideways passing was a tactical thing. We still had good games though in 2018/2019 even though we were less exciting, Dortmund, in particular, was beautiful.

Poch's team decline you could say started three years ago (but people forget that the 2018-2019 season started really well up until February) but in part this is natural to the cycle of teams, and in part we didn't adequately replace certain players. I think the player performance levels only dropped of in 2019.

I actually believe our players do have decent quality, we've seen it earlier in this season and at various points, I think our window also strengthened us, and while our defense isn't very good, most top 6 teams are in the same boat. Do I think there might be a motivational problem, or a mentality problem, maybe yes. But I do believe you can get more out of this team, if we stop putting ourselves under pressure non stop, and I think the reason we do that is a coaching issue.