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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

shelfboy68

Well-Known Member
Jun 14, 2008
14,566
19,651
Fair enough each to their own and it wasn’t meant to be a like for like comparison exactly as the players are slightly different but it was more the quality comparison of each player I was going for and ok mabye that team wouldnt win the League now but tbh not many teams would as this Liverpool team and the last 2 seasons man.citys teams are almost perfect and easily the best and most Consistent two Teams to win the league, but hopefully klopps lpool will eventually regress to a more normal points per game level as peps city have come down to this season, that then gives us all hope.
Going to be difficult unless we get the right additions in.
 

spursfan77

Well-Known Member
Aug 13, 2005
46,680
104,956
Imagine the media reaction if Mourinho had come out with this. I suspect it would have been a little different!

 

Dillspur

Well-Known Member
May 18, 2004
3,747
9,926
If we win the Europa League next season under Mourinho , how would you rate Mourinho's work ?

Hard to say. Yes it would be great to win a trophy, but for me it has a lot to do with the style of play, I want to be entertained, I want to love the way we play.
 

Metalhead

But that's a debate for another thread.....
Nov 24, 2013
25,351
38,294
Mourinho is a good manager largely because he is a good motivator, is good at 'anti-football' working out how to stop the other team playing and knows how to organise a team. If you are hard to beat you will win games. Very simple really.

Attacking wise, yes he works on movement and creating overloads and counter attacking strategies, but early on he was big on giving players a lot of responsibility on interpreting the situation themselves and finding their own solutions to problems that may emerge during a game. He didn't 'overcoach' attackers or give them a set strategy to work on. I can't find the source, but if I remember correctly, a lot of his training drills were essentially we give you 'problem x' and you have to resolve that, rather than having a set strategy. This is really important because teams that look sluggish going forwards often are because the players are overthinking what to do, or persisting with a strategy that is not working.

But, I think Mourinho's proactive 'tactics' are very limited. It is more about learning how to be compact and reacting to the opposition, a past spurs manager who was like this was Ramos. Poch takes a Bielsa-esk systems approach, though he became more pragmatic when things moved on. I think for Poch attitude was always the most important thing, but he also did have a very clear system of playing and often struggled to adapt to in game situations.

One of the main things Poch did was to build from the back, and his whole strategy relied on creating options to play through the field. Once play reached the attackers, we could be deadly as the space opened up for them with overloads and all, so most teams tried to stop us starting attacks from the back. So, part of Poch's problem was people would work out how to play against us, though he would adjust our strategy without ever changing the principles.

Our most successful period under Poch was when we played with a back 3 or with a back 4 that would become a back 3 in possession. The idea was you push the fullbacks forward and they, rather than traditionally midfielders, would link play together. Our attacking players in possession would play very high up and very centrally, often very close to each other. The second midfielder would also position himself between the lines. So, essentially the fullbacks were the outlets that we would attempt to pass to and they then feed the attacking 4 (sometimes via a midfielder), if the fullbacks couldn't find space you would try to find the midfielder, which in theory would be a free man in this circumstance. If they tried to press our defenders in theory space would open up further the pitch, but it is pretty hard to find those free men.

This was the problem, because the CM positions would be outnumbered when building from the back, teams realised that it was much better to press our defence and we would struggle to come out. So Poch changed, and Dier became less useful, as originally he was really playing as a DM/CD hybrid not a pure defensive midfielder. Once we changed, his weaknesses became more exposed (not particularly good at receiving the ball under pressure, not mobile enough to turn into space, though early on at least we still had Dembele who could do both those things very well). Now how we changed, was fairly simple, we stopped bringing the Central midfielder back but we still used fullbacks to build attacks. Technically we had more options, and it was harder to press our defence (though the strategy still remained somewhat effective against us).

The problem now though was our fullbacks became very exposed. Without the extra defender if the fullbacks lost the ball we would be exposed. If we were caught further up, the fullbacks would be exposed. This was an even bigger problem because our main fullbacks were now Davies and Trippier, good fullbacks, but not the quickest. When playing 3 at the back they work well, because the centre backs can go wide and cover the space behind, but now we didn't have that. So this strategy did some things well, some things not so well.

So, Poch tried to develop something new to put into place this season. what exactly is hard to say. But I believe that his line up was going to look something like this

Lloris
Foyth (Aurier) Toby (Sanchez) Verts (Foyth/Dier) Rose (Davies)
Winks (Dier)
Lo Celso (Sissoko) Ndombele (Dele)
Moura (Lamela) Kane (Son) Son (Dele)
We tried playing variations of this a few times, but it didn't work, and rumours are the players were not happy with it. If all the players were fit though, it might have worked a lot better. Now I think the idea was Winks would mainly be there for transition, building from the back if you like, which he was doing before. The solution to the fullback issue was to have two tenacious box to box midfielders, with the idea being that in defence they would support the flanks. The problem was it didn't work and our fullbacks would be even more exposed and Winks was pretty isolated in building from the back. Similarly there were issues in that we didn't have another attacking midfielder to take the space that playing from the back gives you, and less runs from deep as an out ball for Toby. I think the two box to box players were being asked to do a lot of work, too much work and considering that in reality it would often be Eriksen and Dele filling those positions, who weren't very good at that kind of roll and were limited offensively doing so, instead of Lo Celso, Ndombele (who probably couldn't really do the roll anyway) or Sissoko. If it was Lo Celso and Sissoko it might have worked but without quick and defensively sound fullbacks it was always going to be an issue particularly as our ageing centre backs were not able to cover effectively. Similarly, with the midfield being asked to do a lot of covering I think it was hard to create a cohesive unit in attack. What ended up happening is our midfield and defence would pulled all over the place and massive gaps would emerge behind the fullbacks and in front of the back four.

In the end Poch was going back and forth between 4-3-3 and 4-5-1 and this created even more confusion and it was a bit of a mess. If Poch did have the right players fit and ready it might of been way more successful, though to put it simply, under Poch the central defence (and a deep CDM) are the teams playmakers, not the midfielders and I am not sure if that works in a 4-3-3. Because the point of a 4-3-3 is to dominate the middle of the park. So, I think you can play it as a passing team that uses the midfield more or as a counter attacking or pressing team that wants to win the ball in the middle. But, maybe with adjustments it could have worked and Poch needed to think of new solutions, it just didn't work be it through not having the right players, demanding too much from central midfielders, just being a tactical incompatible with how we built attacks or simply not having the time. Poch's stubbornness didn't help, but it does feel a shame that he was never really given a chance to make it work with the right players.

These problems won't be the case for Jose as he doesn't have this patient approach and is adaptable to the needs of each match. But, Poch teams could have games with a lot of passing, seemingly going nowhere, but the idea was to build attacks, it was not a defensive manoeuvre of possession keeping (like is applied by Del Bosque's Spain for example). Jose will not do that, a solid team which is adaptable to different situations is a winning team for Jose. For Poch a winning team is a brave confident team that is focused on themselves not what the opposition throws at them. One is a principally attacking proactive philosophy (regardless of entertainment, defensive football can be entertaining too!) the other is principally a reactive defensive strategy (can't call it a philosophy). Basically we cannot expect to see much attacking football, even if there might be some entertainment on how we might play in the future (I found the first 70 mins or so against west ham mildly entertaining, but then at 1-0 and it was all game management and get one on the counter).
Your point about Poch not being particularly in-game reactive was a good one. He was pretty notorious- certainly during the last season or two although he may have been the same before - for leaving substitutions to the point where they weren’t really going to have any time to make an impact. That was really frustrating.
 

buckley

Well-Known Member
Sep 15, 2012
2,595
6,073
You have people that want us to play the mythical " spurs way "
you have people that " I just want to win something "
You have people that dont want play in Europe unless its champions league .
You have people that would rather us lose if it gets rid of Jose .
You have people that are willing to back Jose because if you do you back spurs.
You have people that want ENIC out
You have people that think ENIC have done the best that can be done
You have the Levy haters.
You have the Levy backers
You have people that want Kane sold to fund a rebuild
You have people that see Kane as the heart of the club
I could go on and on but you get the drift and to paraphrase the Rick Nelson song garden party " if I can't please everyone I am gonna please myself "
This is or should be the attitude of Levy and Jose for me the role of the supporter is just that " get behind the team " and support the club .
When I hear people turning their nose up at the europa cup I get so angry I could crush a grape .
As Bill Nicholson said " if we are not in Europe we are nothing " that still holds true today irrespective of the size or strength of the squad for a club like spurs Europe should be the minimum requirement more so if you cannot win a domestic trophy also other countries are not of the same opinion and respect the Europa League as it raises your stature and helps to attract players if you play in Europe every year.
So for me instead of these splintered different views how's about we all put away personnel views and get behind Jose and give him full support .
 

Metalhead

But that's a debate for another thread.....
Nov 24, 2013
25,351
38,294
Hard to say. Yes it would be great to win a trophy, but for me it has a lot to do with the style of play, I want to be entertained, I want to love the way we play.
I’ll take the trophy however we play! That’s just my personal opinion though - I appreciate that others won’t agree.
 

Shadydan

Well-Known Member
Jul 7, 2012
38,247
104,143
You have people that want us to play the mythical " spurs way "
you have people that " I just want to win something "
You have people that dont want play in Europe unless its champions league .
You have people that would rather us lose if it gets rid of Jose .
You have people that are willing to back Jose because if you do you back spurs.
You have people that want ENIC out
You have people that think ENIC have done the best that can be done
You have the Levy haters.
You have the Levy backers
You have people that want Kane sold to fund a rebuild
You have people that see Kane as the heart of the club
I could go on and on but you get the drift and to paraphrase the Rick Nelson song garden party " if I can't please everyone I am gonna please myself "
This is or should be the attitude of Levy and Jose for me the role of the supporter is just that " get behind the team " and support the club .
When I hear people turning their nose up at the europa cup I get so angry I could crush a grape .
As Bill Nicholson said " if we are not in Europe we are nothing " that still holds true today irrespective of the size or strength of the squad for a club like spurs Europe should be the minimum requirement more so if you cannot win a domestic trophy also other countries are not of the same opinion and respect the Europa League as it raises your stature and helps to attract players if you play in Europe every year.
So for me instead of these splintered different views how's about we all put away personnel views and get behind Jose and give him full support .

It's almost as if people don't think alike and everyone has different expectations...
 

HedgieSpur

Well-Known Member
Jan 21, 2020
1,470
4,971
It wasn't trying to be boring though, just couldn't find a way through, because as you say a lot of teams learnt to play against us (namely pin us into our own half, see us struggle to pass it out). We were still damn effective though, and could always rip teams apart on our day, even big teams. Poch tried to change things up with a three man midfield, he had injuries to players like Foyth and Lo Celso who were set to have a key roll this year and was a little naive in the transfer market.

Sometimes I wonder, if Lo Celso was fit from the start Poch might still be in a job. However, we got Mourinho in, which is way more boring. It's not even debatable. But he is a 'winner'. It is unfair to judge him on this season next season is where he will be judged, but there wont be any real attempt at playing 'exciting' stuff and while Jose isn't George Graham there are a lot of question marks whether he knows how to adapt to modern football. He also often is too reactive for me, too scared of the opposition rather than focusing on what we can do well.

If jose has us winning is a big if, and style does matter, it really does. But that's the thing, Jose needs to be judged on results alone, he is not going to have style and pro activeness to save him.

Sorry, this simply wasn't the case. The last year under Poch was ABJECT. Slow, turgid, sideways football of the type we hadn't seen since the worst days of AVB.

I get that people love(d) the guy but lets not try to gloss over how bad it became towards the end.
 

Cochise

Well-Known Member
Aug 8, 2019
4,762
12,519
It's a good point made about Lampard having a crack at his team. The difference is he has the nice guy reputation that means statements like this (and he has made them before IIRC), get listed as out of the ordinary.

It's also about delivery too; Lampard was being frank (excuse the pun), there was no emotion to it. When Mourinho does it, it's tinged with irritation and displeasure, like the poor performance was a stain upon him.
 

yido_number1

He'll always be magic
Jun 8, 2004
8,646
16,810
Sorry, this simply wasn't the case. The last year under Poch was ABJECT. Slow, turgid, sideways football of the type we hadn't seen since the worst days of AVB.

I get that people love(d) the guy but lets not try to gloss over how bad it became towards the end.
After signing no players? So bad we made it to the champions league final without Kane... Let's not gloss over the mitigating circumstances.
 

Yiddo100

Well-Known Member
Jan 16, 2019
9,894
52,009
Hard to say. Yes it would be great to win a trophy, but for me it has a lot to do with the style of play, I want to be entertained, I want to love the way we play.
We played good football for 2 or 3 years or so under poch and won nothing, if we won the Europa I couldn’t care how we play
 

C0YS

Just another member
Jul 9, 2007
12,780
13,817
Sorry, this simply wasn't the case. The last year under Poch was ABJECT. Slow, turgid, sideways football of the type we hadn't seen since the worst days of AVB.

I get that people love(d) the guy but lets not try to gloss over how bad it became towards the end.
Mate how is that at all relevant to what I wrote?

It was sideways, that's exactly what I'm saying. The aim is to try and pass it out of defence, if the opposition lines up high up the pitch and tries to do that = a lot of sideways passing. The point is that it wasn't some defensive move. It was still a proactive attempt to create space further up the pitch to win. Again, Attacking or maybe 'proactive' football is not about how 'fun it is to watch' rather simply what the aim is.

I actually don't think the football was that bad, most of the time last season, because I saw the point on it, but there were definitely certain games, because teams would prevent us from playing our game, and we only played our game. We didn't really play in another way (well bring Llorente on I guess).
 

stormfly

Well-Known Member
Dec 6, 2006
4,584
11,990
Our home game against Newcastle this year was the worst football I had ever seen us play live. First time I ever felt like I had completely wasted my money going to a match. It was obvious something had to change. I was getting to the point where I would have got excited to see a forward pass into the oppositions half. I will take any kind of football as long as I see some forward passes and a few shots.
 
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