Jose Mourinho

spursfan77 said:

Monday morning email from the Athletic on Mourinho's first week. A few interesting snippets in there:

There was a particularly eerie atmosphere among the squad that Mauricio Pochettino built when they learnt that their maker had been sacked.

Every player at the club was either signed by Pochettino, transformed by his coaching, or both. Five and a half years is an epoch in modern football and Tottenham as a club are totally unrecognisable now from the days when Tim Sherwood was in charge and the main question was how to get the most out of Roberto Soldado, Paulinho and Emmanuel Adebayor.

“It’s a strange feeling,” reflects Toby Alderweireld as he spoke to The Athletic on Saturday afternoon, after the start of the next Tottenham era. “You’re loyal to your old manager. We have to be very grateful and thankful to him, where he brought us. It is a strange feeling when the manager where you’ve been for five years is leaving and suddenly, you have another manager. But sometimes, that’s football.”

And as soon as Jose Mourinho entered the building on Wednesday morning, he started to make an impression on people. Everyone knows about Mourinho’s reputation, the authoritarian who exhausts his players after two years of work, the man who will say or do anything to get a rise out of a rival.

But he is also capable of being incredibly charming when he wants to be, and that is how he was when he was introduced to people for the first time on Wednesday. Joking with staff about getting his club uniform sorted, putting them at ease by talking about his family, he was unfailingly personable and friendly with everyone he met. That was the first thing that stood out to those that met him. The other thing was his focus.

Mourinho first met with his players on Wednesday just before training to tell them that they were better than they looked. Mourinho acknowledged that he had competed against this team in the past, with Chelsea and Manchester United, but said he was no longer their enemy, but their family instead. “I will be your father, friend, girlfriend, whatever you want,” he said, according to reports in Portugal. He promised to do everything to help the players.

The goal for this season is to finish in the top four. Mourinho showed the players the Premier League table, with Spurs stuck in 14th, and told them they were far better than that. And it registered. “He believed in us, he believed in the team,” Toby Alderweireld says after Saturday’s game.

“He’s a winning guy. I think he will help us a lot,” Lucas Moura tells The Athletic. “He tries to give confidence for everyone and to change our mentality, putting in our minds that we are very good players, that we are very strong, and we can win big things. And we believe that. We work to win trophies this season.”

Had Mauricio Pochettino taken training on Wednesday, it would have been in the morning, but it was pushed back into the afternoon so that Mourinho could take it instead. The training ground had not been a happy place in recent months, with the players feeling increasingly distant from Pochettino, sensing that his enthusiasm had waned, finding themselves with nothing left in the tank for those demanding double sessions, looking forward to those rare days off.

But speak to those who know the Spurs dressing room best and they say that the change in mood Mourinho has delivered was instant. “Jose has brought so much energy to training already,” says one source. “They felt they had reached the dead end in the road under Pochettino.” The players knew that after 25 points in their last 24 league games, no away league win in 10 months, the whole place needed a freshening up. And, according to another source, that is precisely what they feel they have got.

Mourinho took training on Wednesday afternoon, along with his new team of assistants. Joao Sacramento always stood out at Lille for his ability to run sessions in French, Spanish and Portuguese, and here he was barking out instructions in English. Ricardo Formosinho, their tactical analyst, formerly part of Mourinho’s staff at Manchester United, helped to run a series of short sharp drills. Nuno Santos, who, like Sacramento joined from Lille, took the goalkeeping drills.

There were individual meetings with the senior players too, as Mourinho took the most important men aside to start working on them. He had his already-famous conversation with Dele Alli, asking the 23-year-old if he was Dele, or his brother, and telling him to play like his old self again, a conversation that was already bearing fruit by lunchtime on Saturday.

On Wednesday night, Mourinho stayed so long at Spurs’ training ground that he did not want to drive back down through the traffic of central London to his home in Belgravia afterwards. So with his staff, he decided instead to stay at the on-site accommodation at Hotspur Way. “If you are trying to find a six-star hotel, you could not find better than here,” he explained the next day.

And Mourinho is right. A typical room at the lodge has a super kingsize bed, four kingsize pillows and another four comfortable cushions. “Amazing to sleep in the middle of five or six huge soft pillows, and an expensive duvet” Mourinho said. These are rooms designed to give players the best possible rest and sleep before games, with top-of-the-range memory foam bedding, coffee machines and fruit bowls in every room. Mourinho and his team got up early to start work at 7am on Thursday.

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Spurs_Bear said:

The setup we saw yesterday was very Mourinho, one full back playing as a winger when we’ve got the ball while the other slots in as a 3rd CB.

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spursfan77 said:

Monday morning email from the Athletic on Mourinho's first week. A few interesting snippets in there:

There was a particularly eerie atmosphere among the squad that Mauricio Pochettino built when they learnt that their maker had been sacked.

Every player at the club was either signed by Pochettino, transformed by his coaching, or both. Five and a half years is an epoch in modern football and Tottenham as a club are totally unrecognisable now from the days when Tim Sherwood was in charge and the main question was how to get the most out of Roberto Soldado, Paulinho and Emmanuel Adebayor.

“It’s a strange feeling,” reflects Toby Alderweireld as he spoke to The Athletic on Saturday afternoon, after the start of the next Tottenham era. “You’re loyal to your old manager. We have to be very grateful and thankful to him, where he brought us. It is a strange feeling when the manager where you’ve been for five years is leaving and suddenly, you have another manager. But sometimes, that’s football.”

And as soon as Jose Mourinho entered the building on Wednesday morning, he started to make an impression on people. Everyone knows about Mourinho’s reputation, the authoritarian who exhausts his players after two years of work, the man who will say or do anything to get a rise out of a rival.

But he is also capable of being incredibly charming when he wants to be, and that is how he was when he was introduced to people for the first time on Wednesday. Joking with staff about getting his club uniform sorted, putting them at ease by talking about his family, he was unfailingly personable and friendly with everyone he met. That was the first thing that stood out to those that met him. The other thing was his focus.

Mourinho first met with his players on Wednesday just before training to tell them that they were better than they looked. Mourinho acknowledged that he had competed against this team in the past, with Chelsea and Manchester United, but said he was no longer their enemy, but their family instead. “I will be your father, friend, girlfriend, whatever you want,” he said, according to reports in Portugal. He promised to do everything to help the players.

The goal for this season is to finish in the top four. Mourinho showed the players the Premier League table, with Spurs stuck in 14th, and told them they were far better than that. And it registered. “He believed in us, he believed in the team,” Toby Alderweireld says after Saturday’s game.

“He’s a winning guy. I think he will help us a lot,” Lucas Moura tells The Athletic. “He tries to give confidence for everyone and to change our mentality, putting in our minds that we are very good players, that we are very strong, and we can win big things. And we believe that. We work to win trophies this season.”

Had Mauricio Pochettino taken training on Wednesday, it would have been in the morning, but it was pushed back into the afternoon so that Mourinho could take it instead. The training ground had not been a happy place in recent months, with the players feeling increasingly distant from Pochettino, sensing that his enthusiasm had waned, finding themselves with nothing left in the tank for those demanding double sessions, looking forward to those rare days off.

But speak to those who know the Spurs dressing room best and they say that the change in mood Mourinho has delivered was instant. “Jose has brought so much energy to training already,” says one source. “They felt they had reached the dead end in the road under Pochettino.” The players knew that after 25 points in their last 24 league games, no away league win in 10 months, the whole place needed a freshening up. And, according to another source, that is precisely what they feel they have got.

Mourinho took training on Wednesday afternoon, along with his new team of assistants. Joao Sacramento always stood out at Lille for his ability to run sessions in French, Spanish and Portuguese, and here he was barking out instructions in English. Ricardo Formosinho, their tactical analyst, formerly part of Mourinho’s staff at Manchester United, helped to run a series of short sharp drills. Nuno Santos, who, like Sacramento joined from Lille, took the goalkeeping drills.

There were individual meetings with the senior players too, as Mourinho took the most important men aside to start working on them. He had his already-famous conversation with Dele Alli, asking the 23-year-old if he was Dele, or his brother, and telling him to play like his old self again, a conversation that was already bearing fruit by lunchtime on Saturday.

On Wednesday night, Mourinho stayed so long at Spurs’ training ground that he did not want to drive back down through the traffic of central London to his home in Belgravia afterwards. So with his staff, he decided instead to stay at the on-site accommodation at Hotspur Way. “If you are trying to find a six-star hotel, you could not find better than here,” he explained the next day.

And Mourinho is right. A typical room at the lodge has a super kingsize bed, four kingsize pillows and another four comfortable cushions. “Amazing to sleep in the middle of five or six huge soft pillows, and an expensive duvet” Mourinho said. These are rooms designed to give players the best possible rest and sleep before games, with top-of-the-range memory foam bedding, coffee machines and fruit bowls in every room. Mourinho and his team got up early to start work at 7am on Thursday.

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cjbyid said:

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Barnes Spurs said:

Any idea if Ndombele was in training?

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Barnes Spurs said:

Any idea if Ndombele was in training?

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Barnes Spurs said:

Any idea if Ndombele was in training?

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Ronwol196061 said:

Seems he was on the B team

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SpartanSpur said:

Interesting comments from Jose on Sissoko. I love what Sissoko gave us last season but it is music to my ears. He's a squad player at best for where we're aiming IMO.

“What made me [start Winks and Dier] was the positional play of the four attacking players,” Mourinho told BBC Sport.

“I needed one midfielder that was more positional and I needed one midfielder that was more a passer of the ball.

“Of course, when I see Moussa, he is a very good player but he is very different than my needs."

"I need that stability from Dier and I need the kid to move the ball faster, also positionally and also to find the attacking players in the positions we want them to find the ball.”

Hopefully Mourinho sees Ndombele as the first choice passer. Winks and Ndombele is good competition for that role if this becomes a regular setup. We'd just need competition for DM to complete the midfield options.

Really encouraged by what I'm seeing from our new manager so far.

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SpartanSpur said:

Interesting comments from Jose on Sissoko. I love what Sissoko gave us last season but it is music to my ears. He's a squad player at best for where we're aiming IMO.

“What made me [start Winks and Dier] was the positional play of the four attacking players,” Mourinho told BBC Sport.

“I needed one midfielder that was more positional and I needed one midfielder that was more a passer of the ball.

“Of course, when I see Moussa, he is a very good player but he is very different than my needs."

"I need that stability from Dier and I need the kid to move the ball faster, also positionally and also to find the attacking players in the positions we want them to find the ball.”

Hopefully Mourinho sees Ndombele as the first choice passer. Winks and Ndombele is good competition for that role if this becomes a regular setup. We'd just need competition for DM to complete the midfield options.

Really encouraged by what I'm seeing from our new manager so far.

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dagraham said:

It’s not rocket science really to have a combination of a protector and a ball player in a midfield two, but I’ll be very glad to see us back to that.

Agree about N’Dombele. His passing is on a different level to Winks from what I’ve seen so far.

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Mr Pink said:

Ndombele and Dier will be out first choice CM 2, no doubt about it.

Big Mo will still be great for coming on to see out games under pressure. Saturday aside, I'm sure JM will use him for exactly that.

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wrd said:

I do feel with our midfield options it almost feels like a choice between whether you play the 2 players with the most ability which in my opinion would be Winks / Ndombele or the most balanced choice which is a deep lying playmaker and a defensive midfielder which as you say will probably be Dier and Ndombele. Don't see that changing unless we adjust to a midfield 3 as I can consider dele part of a front 4.

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