Jose Mourinho

glacierSpurs said:

While I hope to see the best in him, his mistakes have no doubt been pretty consequential in our results.

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His mistake was compounded by Toby backing off to the penalty spot and allowing their player to just run forward and take a free shot from the edge of our box. Bad touch to lose the ball on half way but not only Foyth's fault it lead to a goal

spids said:

Since Mourinho took over only Liverpool have got more points than us in the league, Man City the same. We’d be third on GD if the league has started that week. That’s pretty impressive given the form the players were / are in.

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Just about to post that. It’s a good start whichever way you skin the cat. Mourinho haters look away now! ?



Edit: I see it’s already been posted. A solid start nonetheless. Makes you wonder where we’d be had he been appointed after the Brighton defeat like some wanted.

It’s a strange one, overall happy with Jose and his record since taking over is decent.

Just can’t help feeling disappointed in the United/Chelsea/Norwich results. Not saying we would expect to automatically win them but the performances and approach were awful.

Will only be fair to judge him this season if the bald Teflon **** let’s him sign anyone in January. If not we’ll have to wait until after the summer.

rossdapep said:

I agree with that aspect but there's also a chance Levy chose an expensive coach rather than an expensive rebuild under Poch.

I was and have been fully behind the managerial change as it was obvious the players had stopped responding to Poch. And Jose was certainly the right choice. However, I'm always sceptical with Levy's angle when it comes to managerial decisions.

Has he gone for Jose because he thinks this squad needs no or little investment? Just a successful coach.

Or does he support the idea that we do need a few changes? And a successful coach is the man to guide us.

Because the two are different. And, yes, it's great that Toby wants to stick around and Alli is scoring again AND I did say a change of manager would prevent a major rebuild but the fact of the matter is we do need at least 4 new players.

If Levy thinks Jose will be a success with little investment then he's going to be proven very wrong.

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I really can’t see that, all sounds a bit too conspiracy theory to me. He appointed Mourinho because we were heading towards a relegation battle under Poch/top 4 hopes were disappearing over the horizon and Mourinho was the best replacement available.

So far, it’s looking like a good appointment. Mourinho is still learning about his players, hence the selection against Norwich and the changes in formation since Son has been suspended.

Spurs_Bear said:

It’s a strange one, overall happy with Jose and his record since taking over is decent.

Just can’t help feeling disappointed in the United/Chelsea/Norwich results. Not saying we would expect to automatically win them but the performances and approach were awful.

Will only be fair to judge him this season if the bald Teflon **** let’s him sign anyone in January. If not we’ll have to wait until after the summer.

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I think any signings made in January would largely benefit us next season. I am certainly not pinning my hopes for the season on January signings.

Jose's challenge this season is trying to get talented players backup to speed and fitting into the team. Get Dier to protect the back four and Ndombele, LoCelso and Eriksen performing and suddenly we have a workable midfield.

spursfan77 said:

Just about to post that. It’s a good start whichever way you skin the cat. Mourinho haters look away now! ?



Edit: I see it’s already been posted. A solid start nonetheless. Makes you wonder where we’d be had he been appointed after the Brighton defeat like some wanted.

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That's legit bonkers. I'm not a hater at all but man, doesn't feel like we've done that well, despite an obvious uptick since he took over.

GD, I shudder to think how we'd be doing in the table if the change hadn't been made tbh.

I remain confident we can finish top 4 end of the season providing we cut out the silly defensive mistakes. We really need Davies back from injury, he is perfect for the role Jose plays at LB. Verts needs to be put out to pasture. With Ndombele hopefully over his injury problems running things from midfield, and some crucial time in January for Jose to work on tactics, plus he will know the players that little bit better, who he can rely on etc, we should have some confidence.

We really need a DM to come in. I am certain Jose will get some money to spend. When does a new manager come in and not get some money to play with? It never happens. I am sure Jose knows he doesn't have hundreds of millions, but at the same time, a manager of Jose's calibre will always request at least some money to fine tune the squad. We had money for Dybala last summer, clearly we have cash.

Krafty said:

The promising thing for me is that Jose is identifying our issues, whereas Poch in his last few months didn’t really seem to know what the issues were.

The attack is performing a lot better, just need the right midfield mix and the defence improved and we will be nearly there. (Do not much to do ha!)

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That’s the key. The defence and attack are working solo, because the midfield is so disfunctional. There is no DM to protect the back 4 (which is lopsided), and that impacts the balance of having someone to set the tempo and pick out the runs of the attack, because the CM’s don’t seem to have a set role, they’re just winging it. As such, the attack are having to work a lot harder to make things happen and run out of steam, this all compounds to invite continued pressure on the defence, leading to mistakes.

sparx100 said:

For me currently we need to have 3 in midfield to not get outplayed. A more defensive minded player (Skipp) alongside Ndombele and Lo Celso would be fine. I really hope they address the dm role in the transfer window. For me that is the main issue at the moment.

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If we can sort out the balance in CM, then I think we’ll see a big upturn in performances. I’m still of the belief we are overrun with only two in the middle, and would be better off with a 433/4312/4321 type system, that which seems to work well for City and Liverpool. Back four with proper fullbacks, centre backs to defend and not be deep playmakers, one holding midfielder to shield and marshal what’s going on around them, then two CM’s with license to impact play going
more, maybe one ball player and one ball carrier to link the attack. Then a fluid front 3 of a No10/second striker in Alli, Kane as the focal point, and the third player free to roam the channels, Son/Moura using their pace to either play right off Kane when Alli plays deeper, or drift wider to create space for Alli’s runs.
Longer term, we are a RB, LB, LCB, DM, maybe even a CM and WF/CF short of where we need to be in order to compete consistently.

That system is fluid enough to have Dier drop in to make a back 3 and go 3421/3412 mid game. Not sure the full backs are ideal, but Jan looks lost out there, and Aurier blows too hot and cold.
Equally you could use Lo Celso, Skipp and Eriksen as the CM 3, I thought at least CE looked to play with his head up there against Norwich, always looked to get on the ball and try to play forward passes.

spids said:

Since Mourinho took over only Liverpool have got more points than us in the league, Man City the same. We’d be third on GD if the league has started that week. That’s pretty impressive given the form the players were / are in.

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This is key. We don’t have to be world beaters just yet, we’re too far behind for that. We just have to be consistent to be the ‘best of the rest’, and that can be seen as a success what with this year being so turbulent. A spell of stability is what’s required between now and the summer. Minor changes in January to bolster glaring gaps, then try and make the best of what we have until the summer out on the pitch, keep turning over the teams we ‘should’ beat and the points will rack up. In the background get the players targetted for the

Misfit said:

That's legit bonkers. I'm not a hater at all but man, doesn't feel like we've done that well, despite an obvious uptick since he took over.

GD, I shudder to think how we'd be doing in the table if the change hadn't been made tbh.

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I think it's a lot due to the unreasonable expectations a few of us have of Mourinho to come in to the job and immediately solve all of our problems.

I personally believe that with this form and with almost any other manager than Mou at the helm we'd be impressed with what's been achieved in such a short span of time and we'd all agree that things would likely get even better given more time.

Instead we already have some fans calling for Mous head despite us having the 3rd best form in the league since his appointment which is bordering to insane if you ask me.

hellava_tough said:

I'll definitely get slated for this ( ) but I've always thought Lamela would make a good ball playing CDM; doesn't mind a tackle as well.

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He has a lot of the attributes but isn't positional disciplined enough, imo.

What I am surprised at is how many have written Mourhino off after so little time .
Based on the same standard Poch would have gone early if early results were the measure of the man .
For me the time to judge is next season after 10 or so games and when he has had time to move on the unwanted or needed and can bring in some of the players that he judges are required.

I do think Jose at the moment is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He said himself he could fix a fair few of our defensive frailties, but that would compromise our attacking play and I feel he’s very conscious of not going down the conservative, perceived negative route.

Issue is that might be the best thing in the short term because we are making so many basic defensive mistakes and unless we can be harder to score against we will not get top four.

buckley said:

What I am surprised at is how many have written Mourhino off after so little time .
Based on the same standard Poch would have gone early if early results were the measure of the man .
For me the time to judge is next season after 10 or so games and when he has had time to move on the unwanted or needed and can bring in some of the players that he judges are required.

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Are people writing him off? I don't think I've seen many doing that, I'm more than happy to give him until the end of next season, I won't laud him too much when we win (like others did after his first 3 games) and I won't be too hard on him when lose.

But it's funny how quickly people change, a lot were saying a rebuild wasn't necessary after the initial bounce now they're back on the rebuild train.

I really hope we do make some signings in January.

We are so desperate for a right back, left back, defensive midfielder and probably even a goal keeper. And probably a centre forward.

Cannot believe how many time’s we’ve allowed our squad to be short in certain positions over the years, does make me worry about Levy’s mindset sometimes.

DJS said:

I really hope we do make some signings in January.

We are so desperate for a right back, left back, defensive midfielder and probably even a goal keeper. And probably a centre forward

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We're not getting those in jan. Clubs aren't letting good players go mid season, the same way we wont sell our good players in jan. The only way to get them is to pay too much for them which we arent doing.

Mourinho firstly needs to get some kind of cohesion into current squad that will make us more difficult to beat

tiger666 said:

We're not getting those in jan. Clubs aren't letting good players go mid season, the same way we wont sell our good players in jan. The only way to get them is to pay too much for them which we arent doing.

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*rates post as sad ?*

dagraham said:

I do think Jose at the moment is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He said himself he could fix a fair few of our defensive frailties, but that would compromise our attacking play and I feel he’s very conscious of not going down the conservative, perceived negative route.

Issue is that might be the best thing in the short term because we are making so many basic defensive mistakes and unless we can be harder to score against we will not get top four.

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Agree. He's trying to get the balance right between a tight defence, controlling the midfield, and being ruthless in attack. Which is exactly what Poch had been struggling with since the squad started blowing out of its arse since that Burnley game last season. The Norwich game showed that he his trying different approaches (even if they were forced on him) to see how they can work.

Hopefully he saw that having 3 ball playing midfielders allowed us to play and create, but the 3 CB's were positioned too far apart. It didn't help that there was only a day to prepare like.

dagraham said:

I do think Jose at the moment is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He said himself he could fix a fair few of our defensive frailties, but that would compromise our attacking play and I feel he’s very conscious of not going down the conservative, perceived negative route.

Issue is that might be the best thing in the short term because we are making so many basic defensive mistakes and unless we can be harder to score against we will not get top four.

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I think he'll adopt this approach when we play Liverpool. I actually wouldn't be surprised if we are the first to beat them......but struggle at Southampton first!

tiger666 said:

We're not getting those in jan. Clubs aren't letting good players go mid season, the same way we wont sell our good players in jan. The only way to get them is to pay too much for them which we arent doing.

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Unless they have buyouts, the clubs need cash, or they are players that are not in their current manager's thoughts.