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Jose Mourinho

How do you feel about Mourinho appointment

  • Excited - silverware here we come baby

    Votes: 666 46.7%
  • Meh - will give him a chance and hope he is successful

    Votes: 468 32.8%
  • Horrified - praying for the day he'll fuck off

    Votes: 292 20.5%

  • Total voters
    1,426

talkshowhost86

Mod-Moose
Staff
Oct 2, 2004
48,100
47,055
Genuinely just looked at our fixtures for the rest of the season and I'm not confident about any of them.

Seems clear that Jose can't get anything much out of the players available so really can't see us turning it around until (its still a big if actually) he's given millions to spend.
 

bat-chain

Well-Known Member
Jan 4, 2009
2,232
9,478
If you replaced Mourinho with Hodgson then that supports your initial point.still find it silly comparing player against a manager however if it makes sense in your head then that's all that matters!

are you being deliberately thick? Someone else made the comparison about why give one time and not the other, it isn’t that hard.

Mourinho has been left behind by modern football, he hasn’t developed a front foot style in 20 years, he's too afraid to have his teams go out attack anyone. Not Burnley, not Norwich, not Leipzig, not Southampton.

To put it another way, imagine he had been in charge of Burnley yesterday, would he have come at us and dominated as they did, he'd have played a flat back six and hoped to nick something. That’s it that’s all he has.

There is a level of delusion or dishonesty amongst our fans that something good is bound to happen if we give it time because it’s Mourinho but if you examine the way he plays, there is almost no evidence of that being successful today in 2020.

Liverpool, Man City, Wolves, Leeds, Sheffield Utd, Chelsea, Leicester. None of the best teams in England today are sitting in and hoping to steal a result. Playing flat back 5's, at Burnley, surrendering initiative in games.
 
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Typical Spurs

Well-Known Member
Feb 10, 2016
990
4,620
He got it wrong 1st half yesterday. Poch got it wrong plenty of times too. Difference being Poch wouldn't have acted at HT to change it.

I didn't think Ndombele was too bad off the ball yesterday. I didn't think his lack of effort was glaringly obvious. However, it's unforgivable to be in shape he's in. His lack of effort in a lot of games has been shocking. The Wolves clip was disgusting. Therefore I've no issue with José calling him out.

7 months into the season and still looking like he can't be arsed is not good enough.
 

spids

Well-Known Member
Jul 19, 2015
6,647
27,841
In a recent interview Jose did make a good case for us being much better next season...

"Do you want an example? Arjen Robben on the bench (at Chelsea). And (Damien) Duff and Joe Cole playing. Or vice-versa.
"Minute 70 and one goes out, the other one goes in. You know what the defenders of the opposition do? 'Oh no’. It’s exactly that.
"It’s (Cristiano) Ronaldo, (Karim) Benzema and (Angel) Di Maria (at Real Madrid) and then minute 70 you bring (Gonzalo) Higuain, (Jose) Callejon, you know?
"We have the squad for that. Imagine my team playing – Lucas, Kane and Son. And Lucas and Son, minute 70 they are tired. Let’s go. (Erik) Lamela and (Steven) Bergwijn.


This coupled with the fact I am sure he will buy a proper target man to compete with, and complement, Kane (some decent info about Osimhen floating around in the ITK section), and we will be a totally different team

 

jimbo

Cabbages
Dec 22, 2003
8,034
7,432
I don't understand why everyone is so determined to get their knickers in a Gordian Knot. Either he will turn the ship around and we'll be much better next season (my belief) or he won't and somebody else will get the opportunity.

A change had to be made, we made it, and we'll make one again when we have to.
 

Spursmad321

Well-Known Member
Aug 10, 2014
372
1,131
The only time Mourinho took over a team in mid season was Porto, he has always worked hard on team shape and given time I think he will turn us into a formidable team, lets give him a chance is what I say!!

Below is is career at Porto:-

Porto
Mourinho was then hand-picked by Porto to replace Octávio Machado on 23 January 2002.[40] At this time, Porto was in fifth place in the Liga (behind Sporting CP, Boavista, União de Leiria and Benfica), had been eliminated from the Taça de Portugal and was in last place in their UEFA Champions League second group stage. Mourinho guided the team to third place that year after a strong 15-game run (including 11 wins) and gave the promise of "making Porto champions next year".
He quickly identified several key players whom he saw as the backbone of what he believed would be a perfect Porto team: Vítor Baía, Ricardo Carvalho, Costinha, Deco, Dmitri Alenichev and Hélder Postiga. He recalled captain Jorge Costa after a six-month loan to Charlton Athletic. The signings from other clubs included Nuno Valente and Derlei from União de Leiria; Paulo Ferreira from Vitória de Setúbal; Pedro Emanuel from Boavista; and Edgaras Jankauskas and Maniche, who both had been out of contract at Benfica.
2002–03 season
During the pre-season, Mourinho put detailed reports of the team training on the club website. The reports were filled with formal vocabulary, as, for instance, he referred to a 20-kilometre (12 mi) jog as an extended aerobic exercise. One of the key aspects in Mourinho-era Porto was the pressuring play, which started at the offensive line, dubbed "pressão alta" ("high pressure"). The physical and combative abilities of the teams' defenders and midfielders allowed Porto to apply pressure from the offensive lines and forced opponents either to concede the ball or try longer, uncertain passes.
In 2003, Mourinho won his first Primeira Liga with a 27–5–2 record, 11 points clear of Benfica, the team he quit two years earlier. The total of 86 points out of the possible maximum of 102 was a Portuguese record, until the 2015–16 season won by Benfica (88 points), since the rule of three points per win was introduced. Mourinho also won the Taça de Portugal, beating former club Leiria in the final, and the UEFA Cup final against Celtic, both in May 2003.
2003–04 season
The following season witnessed further successes: he led Porto to victory in the one-match Portuguese Super Cup, beating Leiria 1–0. They lost, however, the UEFA Super Cup 1–0 to Milan, with Andriy Shevchenko scoring the solitary goal. The team was dominant in the Primeira Liga and finished the season with a perfect home record, an eight-point advantage, and an unbeaten run that only ended against Gil Vicente; they secured the title five weeks before the end of the season. Porto lost the 2004 Taça de Portugal Final to Benfica in May 2004, but two weeks later, Mourinho won a greater prize: the UEFA Champions League, with a 3–0 win over Monaco in Germany. The club had eliminated Manchester United, Lyon and Deportivo de La Coruña and their sole defeat of the competition came against Real Madrid in the group round.
 

E17yid

Well-Known Member
Jan 21, 2013
16,985
30,494
I don't understand why everyone is so determined to get their knickers in a Gordian Knot. Either he will turn the ship around and we'll be much better next season (my belief) or he won't and somebody else will get the opportunity.

A change had to be made, we made it, and we'll make one again when we have to.

I agree with this. I guess the concern some may have though is us going back another few steps next season but if it does it does. It is what it is.
 

SirHarryHotspur

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2017
4,999
7,414
The way some are going on you would think that Spurs have never played negatively ever before, go back to 23rd November 1963 away to Ipswich Town , manager Bill Nicholson set us up to play the offside trap can't remember exactly how often the Ipswich forwards were caught out but pretty sure it was into double figures . We have played some negative football under every manager from Bill to Jose apart maybe from Ossie when it was charge of the light brigade stuff, don't leave anybody defending.
 

shelfboy68

Well-Known Member
Jun 14, 2008
14,566
19,651
I don't understand why everyone is so determined to get their knickers in a Gordian Knot. Either he will turn the ship around and we'll be much better next season (my belief) or he won't and somebody else will get the opportunity.

A change had to be made, we made it, and we'll make one again when we have to.
More like a Windsor knot
 

dtxspurs

Welcome to the Good Life
Dec 28, 2017
11,234
46,574
His negative tactics are quite clearly losing us points that’s obvious and insanely frustrating. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt due to injuries but I’m not at all optimistic about his future here. Unless you give him 150mil to spend in the summer I just don’t see how any of this works out.
 

Khilari

Plumber. Sort of.
Jun 19, 2008
3,461
5,287
He got it wrong 1st half yesterday. Poch got it wrong plenty of times too. Difference being Poch wouldn't have acted at HT to change it.

I didn't think Ndombele was too bad off the ball yesterday. I didn't think his lack of effort was glaringly obvious. However, it's unforgivable to be in shape he's in. His lack of effort in a lot of games has been shocking. The Wolves clip was disgusting. Therefore I've no issue with José calling him out.

7 months into the season and still looking like he can't be arsed is not good enough.
I don't think he "got it wrong".

Sanchez, Dier, Vertonghen, Skipp and Lo Celso had played 120min of football <72h earlier.

He, unlike us has to shoulder the responsibility of making judgement calls about who is fit enough to start. He probably wanted to go in at HT at least level then bring on Moura and GLC after 60-70min to try and push for a winner.

He cannot legislate for individual errors (Lloris). He has limited attacking options with both our two top goalscorer injured.

Really easy, armchair managing but I suspect the reality of tactics and planning are far tougher when you have multiple absentees.
 

WiganSpur

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
15,974
32,682
I think it's clear that unless we literally don't win a game for the rest of the season and get dragged into a relegation scrap, Mourinho is going to get a full summer and transfer window before he gets judged properly. Maybe when he gets Kane and Son back and brings in a couple of players then we'll morph into this entirely new side. Until then, there are a some serious red flags.

1. The defence has been absolutely atrocious. Kane and Son being injured should have no bearing on our ability to put out a coherent, organised backline. Just three clean sheets in the league since he joined, with the likes of Sheffield Utd, Wolves and Crystal Palace having lower goals conceded columns - we are closer to the worst defensive record in the league than we are to Sheffield Utd. Are our defensive players really all that bad? Are they that much worse than those clubs? We have some very highly rated and expensively signed players in our squad, is this really as good as they can get before we start trying to buy our way out of trouble?

2. The attack is also crap. It's just diabolical to watch. We just aren't creating enough chances. Football is a simple game, and in general those teams who create the most also scored the most over the course of the season. We're not doing it, and that doesn't look like changing any time soon. The movement of our attacking players is crap, their touches in and around the box seem way off and to be honest it just looks like poor coaching to me. I think I remember reading about how much time Klopp spends training his teams on attacking moves, I just don't see any evidence of that at all.

3. He doesn't appear to have a clue what his best XI is. Yes, we've had a lot of games and have needed to rotate, and yes, we've had a lot of injuries, but there's just no consistency to our systems or personnel. Again, maybe this changes in summer, but at the moment it's just a disorganised mess.

We're not the first team to have injuries in our squad, nor is there going to be this magical season when everyone gets fit and stays fit for the entire season. The fact that we are coping so badly with the loss of Kane and Son shows as much as anything else a loser's mentality throughout the squad, instead of standing up and making themselves counted the mindset just seems to be a "well what could I do? Not my fault guv". I'll remind you all that last season Liverpool took on Barcelona when 3-0 down with Salah and Firmino both out injured and Robertson going off at half time - we all remember how that ended and it wasn't with them moaning about injuries.

Like I said at the beginning, it's hard to see much changing before the summer at which point we'll get to REALLY judge this side, but at the moment this is arguably the least enjoyable season of the past 15 years. At least Sherwood had us in the top 6...
He's come in mid season and he's still learning about the players, he's also had to contend with the injuries so i'll forgive him not knowing what his best XI is. He's said himself he's learning who's got the stomach for the fight for next season.

The defence is the biggest problem. Too many mistakes, from the defenders and goalkeepers, general poor penalty box defending and individual errors. We'll 100% be after a centre back and rightly so, because we will get nowhere results wise if we don't do anything about it.

I am not giving Mourinho a free pass though. Kane and Son out shouldn't affect the defending and in spite of the individual errors I still feel like we should be doing better. In attack despite the handicap Lucas/Alli/Bergwijn are not brave enough in making runs (Leipzig match the best example).

But I do think comparing the current Liverpool team to us is a bit ridiculous. Klopp is what? 4-5 years down the line? Maybe a better comparison would be 15/16 Liverpool, when Klopp came in at a similar point to Mourinho. Liverpool finished 8th that year.
 

danielneeds

Kick-Ass
May 5, 2004
24,179
48,764
Maybe a better comparison would be 15/16 Liverpool, when Klopp came in at a similar point to Mourinho. Liverpool finished 8th that year.
Thing is almost as soon as Klopp came in mid-season you could see a style of play established. They weren’t perfect at it, but you could see they were trying to play a certain way. For all Jose’s whinging, there is not a single identifiable style of play other than give it to Aurier and let him cross it since Jose got here.
 

WiganSpur

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
15,974
32,682
Thing is almost as soon as Klopp came in mid-season you could see a style of play established. They weren’t perfect at it, but you could see they were trying to play a certain way. For all Jose’s whinging, there is not a single identifiable style of play other than give it to Aurier and let him cross it since Jose got here.
Yeah i'm not disputing that because I can't see obvious consistent patterns of play. But Klopp and Jose are different managers. I think Jose is more strategic and Klopp is more philosophical. Both approaches require time though because they need the right players.
 

rez9000

Any point?
Feb 8, 2007
11,942
21,098
I think it's clear that unless we literally don't win a game for the rest of the season and get dragged into a relegation scrap, Mourinho is going to get a full summer and transfer window before he gets judged properly. Maybe when he gets Kane and Son back and brings in a couple of players then we'll morph into this entirely new side. Until then, there are a some serious red flags.

1. The defence has been absolutely atrocious. Kane and Son being injured should have no bearing on our ability to put out a coherent, organised backline. Just three clean sheets in the league since he joined, with the likes of Sheffield Utd, Wolves and Crystal Palace having lower goals conceded columns - we are closer to the worst defensive record in the league than we are to Sheffield Utd. Are our defensive players really all that bad? Are they that much worse than those clubs? We have some very highly rated and expensively signed players in our squad, is this really as good as they can get before we start trying to buy our way out of trouble?
Did you see Toby yesterday? That was, for me hands down, the worst performance he's put in in a Spurs shirt. This is a confidence issue. You can't force a player to play well. If their confidence is low they can put in as much effort as you like - and Toby certainly tried - but dull that edge and a tiny drop can make all the difference between a stellar performance and a terrible one. Look to the opposite - look at Wolves. They may not be the best team on paper, but by God do they believe in themselves. Look at Liverpool. They too don't have stars in every position, but they believe.

You simply can't legislate for players not being in the right place in their minds if you've only been working with them for a short period. Whatever the cause, it's something that can't be coached out in a short space of time. One of the things that Mourinho can bring is a siege mentality - an us against them attitude that puts fire in the belly, but in the current circumstances any confidence boosting messaging he may be trying to convey will have to contend with, 'Christ, we don't have any strikers', 'My God, another injury', 'For crying out loud, we conceded again'. Dele said it in his post-match interview that the half-time dressing room was 'sticky' (and he didn't mean it literally, although we are talking about Burnley here :D ). The mood music right now is very likely very negative and the effect of it will make solving it an uphill battle until there's space to step back, take a breather and build from the bottom up again i.e. pre-season.

2. The attack is also crap. It's just diabolical to watch. We just aren't creating enough chances. Football is a simple game, and in general those teams who create the most also scored the most over the course of the season. We're not doing it, and that doesn't look like changing any time soon. The movement of our attacking players is crap, their touches in and around the box seem way off and to be honest it just looks like poor coaching to me. I think I remember reading about how much time Klopp spends training his teams on attacking moves, I just don't see any evidence of that at all.
And again, confidence will play a part as well as the possibility that players are being asked to perform roles they're not suited to because they have no choice. Dele in particular will not work well as the tip of the needle - that's what Harry and Sonny are for. Much of what a footballer does on the pitch will be a combination of instinct and muscle memory, so when asked to perform in a different role the instinct will be to play the way they are accustomed to playing which doesn't fit quite as well into the way they are being asked to play. Again, very very fine margins can have very very large effects.

3. He doesn't appear to have a clue what his best XI is. Yes, we've had a lot of games and have needed to rotate, and yes, we've had a lot of injuries, but there's just no consistency to our systems or personnel. Again, maybe this changes in summer, but at the moment it's just a disorganised mess.
And you know that he has no clue about his best XI how? Have you spoken with him and asked? The fact that he's chopping and changing is not necessarily any indicator of his views as to which his 'best' players are. Plus which, you're ignoring the fact that perhaps he's utilising certain players at certain times because he thinks it's the best lineup to get results. Such as the way he deployed Tanganga and Sanchez against Wolves because he wanted to negate the pace of their forwards. A good tactical decision, let down by individual mistakes, which you can't legislate for.

And that's without even mentioning the fitness issue, of which there's a strong suggestion that we may have problems with the previous setup (again not casting any aspersions, just reflecting the nuggets of info that have been shared by various sources). There's match-fit and then there's overall fitness. The majority of overall fitness work is done in preseason and then 'topped up' (so to speak) during the campaign as part of recovery and next-match prep.

And if there's a problem with the fitness regime you then have a double-whammy in that players aren't properly prepared during the close season and then aren't being 'topped up' properly during the campaign itself. And there's little that can be done to remedy that partway through a campaign - you have to have the time and space to implement new systems i.e. pre-season.

Again, the expectation that a manager can come in midseason and fundamentally change all aspects of training is a false one, as has been said by so many professionals time and time again. If that premise is accepted (as it should be), it puts a very different slant on the situation - that Mourinho right now is involved in nothing but firefighting and expecting anything else is unjustifiable.

We're not the first team to have injuries in our squad, nor is there going to be this magical season when everyone gets fit and stays fit for the entire season. The fact that we are coping so badly with the loss of Kane and Son shows as much as anything else a loser's mentality throughout the squad, instead of standing up and making themselves counted the mindset just seems to be a "well what could I do? Not my fault guv". I'll remind you all that last season Liverpool took on Barcelona when 3-0 down with Salah and Firmino both out injured and Robertson going off at half time - we all remember how that ended and it wasn't with them moaning about injuries.
And right there, you've pretty much negated your own red flags, old chap. Yes, I too believe that there is a serious confidence issue in the squad right now, but in the heart of the cauldron of a campaign it's an almost impossible thing to remedy. It's like dry rot - once it's set in, it's hard to shift without major work and the time to do that major work isn't available halfway through a season.

Like I said at the beginning, it's hard to see much changing before the summer at which point we'll get to REALLY judge this side, but at the moment this is arguably the least enjoyable season of the past 15 years. At least Sherwood had us in the top 6...
You're right, it's not enjoyable, but that doesn't mean it's not understandable. And comparing with Sherwood is a spurious argument because the situation was very very different. We were a different club, the league was in a different place, some factors that existed then don't exist now and vice versa.

I'll say it again - we cannot say whether Mourinho is going to be good for us or not. But in the same way we can't say he will be, we also can't say that he won't be. And those 'red flags' are actually false flags if one tries to apply them to the man rather than the situation.
 

rez9000

Any point?
Feb 8, 2007
11,942
21,098
are you being deliberately thick? Someone else made the comparison about why give one time and not the other, it isn’t that hard.

Mourinho has been left behind by modern football, he hasn’t developed a front foot style in 20 years, he's too afraid to have his teams go out attack anyone. Not Burnley, not Norwich, not Leipzig, not Southampton.

To put it another way, imagine he had been in charge of Burnley yesterday, would he have come at us and dominated as they did, he'd have played a flat back six and hoped to nick something. That’s it that’s all he has.

There is a level of delusion or dishonesty amongst our fans that something good is bound to happen if we give it time because it’s Mourinho but if you examine the way he plays, there is almost no evidence of that being successful today in 2020.

Liverpool, Man City, Wolves, Leeds, Sheffield Utd, Chelsea, Leicester. None of the best teams in England today are sitting in and hoping to steal a result. Playing flat back 5's, at Burnley, surrendering initiative in games.
And I gave you a load of examples of old managers and players succeeding and you blew past it to repeat what you said before.

Look, old chap, if you hate Mourinho, that's entirely your prerogative. It's not for me or anyone else to say that you musn't hate him. But at least be honest about it. Just say you hate him and you always will no matter what he does. At least ChelseaSlagOut Boy doesn't pretend it's for any reason other than blind hatred. If you feel you need to justify that hatred, then maybe you need to look at why you feel you need to hate him, rather than try to convince others to hate him too...
 

Everlasting Seconds

Well-Known Member
Jan 9, 2014
14,914
26,616
His negative tactics are quite clearly losing us points that’s obvious and insanely frustrating. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt due to injuries but I’m not at all optimistic about his future here. Unless you give him 150mil to spend in the summer I just don’t see how any of this works out.
It will work out. When I say "work out" I don't mean necessarily for very many seasons in a row. But for sure, beyond doubt for me, we'll have a good season next season with entertaining football.
First, let's get everybody back from injury.
Then, let's get everybody rested and rejuvenated.
Then, let's bring onboard a couple of new signings.
Then, let's get some stability, so the players can actually work on Mourinho's plan A, rather than constantly having to adjust to tweaks and patches due to major injuries.
The circumstances now are really hard. Much harder than for any other Spurs manager for the last 12 years. But the ceiling is also so high.
 

CornerPinDreamer

up in the cheap seats
Aug 20, 2013
3,716
8,088
remember ManU under Jose being accused of the same negativity, incoherence and dinosaur tactics.. at about the same time in Jose's reign there.. his answer was to cross more and get a Felaini to hold the ball up...

i'm actually fully with the @Grey Fox point of view now...
 

mpickard2087

Patient Zero
Jun 13, 2008
21,886
32,513
Thing is almost as soon as Klopp came in mid-season you could see a style of play established. They weren’t perfect at it, but you could see they were trying to play a certain way. For all Jose’s whinging, there is not a single identifiable style of play other than give it to Aurier and let him cross it since Jose got here.

Well he has been trying to establish his style of play and we can see what we are trying to do - exactly what he has done in the rest of his career.

Against the City's, Liverpool's, Leipzig's etc. we have got the extreme version of his approach. Very low block, everyone in behind the ball, focus on not conceding.

The 'normal' approach against the 'lesser' teams, the Southampton's, Norwich's etc. we've seen so far, is still to get in a medium-low block and cede the ball to coax the opposition out, but we'll engage a bit more and then have two/three/four players ready to blitz them with rapid counter attacks.

We're not going to get anything fundamentally different. I've said loads of times now that the first half of Southampton (a) in the cup was basically perfect for Mourinho tastes. We dropped off and remained secure, moved the ball sharply when getting it back and created some great counters, and only the finishing let us down.

The problem is though that a) he doesn't have the very good pure defenders to sit and absorb pressure - dodgy fullbacks, ageing main centre backs or rookies, no real defensive minded midfielders, etc, and b) without Son (and when he has his moments, Sissoko) he has lost his one reliable person who can rapidly transition and counter. Moura/Bergwijn/Alli again have moments, but aren't brilliant at this. He's shoehorning something onto a group of players who cant carry it out. That wont change until the squad gets overhauled. Until then its football purgatory for us, unless for the rest of the season he just lets a squad mainly composed of players bought for someone else, with more technical ball players who want the ball to feet and to go forward in a slower less transitional manner, go out and just play.

Also whilst on the topic, I have to caution people in general. I saw loads of comments after that Southampton game saying they didn't like it and if we played that way long term it would be a problem, and I see a lot of the same optimists pointing to his Madrid team and the goal scoring stats and that it therefore must have been 'attacking' and so it might change. It was ultra efficient more like, tons of performances like what I describe above, just a game like Southampton they'd have been 4 or 5-0 up with the star power they possessed. Even if we get somewhere near that then we'll always be a team that sits back somewhat and people have to be prepared for that.
 
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