3 reasons why Jose Mourinho is the wrong man for Tottenham Hotspur

It’s been a crazy 12 hours for Tottenham Hotspur and their fans. Last season’s Champions League finalists confirmed they had parted ways with longtime manager Mauricio Pochettino last night, and while a successor was expected to be appointed soon, few people could’ve predicted that Jose Mourinho would be announced as the club’s new boss just hours later.

Mourinho is coming into the hot-seat at Spurs with his back against the wall; he was unceremoniously fired by Manchester United just under a year ago following a string of terrible results, and it’s perhaps fair to argue that he hasn’t been at his best in a long time.

Is Mourinho the right man to end Tottenham’s 11-year wait for a trophy? Spurs chairman Daniel Levy – as well as the club’s fans – will hope so, but there’s some evidence to suggest that this burgeoning relationship could turn into a train wreck.

Here are 3 reasons why Jose Mourinho is the wrong man for Tottenham Hotspur.

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1. His demands for transfer funds may not be met

Mourinho spent nearly £400m at Manchester United, but still wasn't happy

Despite making his name with a smaller club – relatively speaking in comparison to Europe’s giants – in FC Porto, Mourinho has become accustomed over the past 15 years to being in charge of clubs where for the most part, money is simply no object. He spent millions at Chelsea to build his now-legendary Premier League-winning team, and at Inter Milan and Real Madrid, huge funds weren’t hard to come by either.

At Manchester United, meanwhile, the Portuguese boss spent a whopping £391.5m on new players over his two-and-a-half seasons in charge there. But that was never quite enough for Mourinho, who, in December 2017 – just months after spending north of £150m on Romelu Lukaku, Victor Lindelof and Nemanja Matic – stated that United simply weren’t willing to spend enough to compete with the likes of Manchester City.

So how will Mourinho cope at Tottenham – a club that rarely spend hefty fees on new players and went through two transfer windows without signing a single new talent? If Daniel Levy became frustrated with Pochettino’s cries for more backing in the transfer market, one can only imagine how his relationship with Mourinho will develop when the Portuguese discovers he can’t simply go out and sign whoever he wants.

If things do change – and Levy backs Mourinho to the hilt in the transfer market – then practically everyone would surely ask the same question: why did he not back Pochettino with the same? The likelihood is that big money simply isn’t available, and it’s hard to imagine ‘The Special One’ being happy with that.

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#2 Does he still know how to deal with modern players?

Mourinho had difficulties in dealing with social-media-savvy players like Paul Pogba

There’s no disputing that in his early Chelsea days, Mourinho was a genuinely fantastic man-manager who brought his squad closer together than they’d ever been, and helped the likes of Frank Lampard, John Terry and Didier Drogba to maximise their talents and become amongst the best players in the world. But is that still the case some fifteen years later?

Judging by his most recent job at Manchester United, I think it’s questionable. As one example, it’s an accepted fact now that due to the advent of social media outlets such as Twitter and Instagram, players are more accessible to the public than ever before, with stars from football clubs across the world linking up with their fans online. But during his time at Old Trafford, the Portuguese boss didn’t want to hear that.

Mourinho notably attempted a major “social media crackdown” at United, with Red Devils players being instructed not to post any pictures or videos of training, in the build-up to a game or any footage on the team bus. He was also reportedly furious when star midfielder Paul Pogba posted a “happy birthday” video aimed at Jesse Lingard on Instagram.

It may be the case that unfortunately, the former Chelsea and Real Madrid boss is now a man out of touch with the younger generation of players that he’s going to come across in any job he might now take – including the one at Tottenham. And if he’s that out of touch – to the point where he’s attempting to control players’ activities on social media – then how can he really expect a squad to get behind him as his Chelsea men did 15 years ago?

#3 Have his tactics been found out?

In his prime Mourinho was considered a tactical genius, but has he now been found out?

15 years ago, when he won the first of two Premier League titles with Chelsea during his first stint at the club, Mourinho was widely considered a tactical genius. He turned the Blues into a powerful, physical outfit and popularised a 4-3-3 with Claude Makelele as a holding man and Didier Drogba acting as a brutally efficient target-man upfront. Chelsea won the league at a canter, conceding just 15 goals all season.

It’s true that the Portuguese boss has always come under fire for a perceived negative style of football – particularly when compared to managers like Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp – but for the most part, as his fans would always explain, Mourinho’s strategies have worked; he’s a proven winner, and he definitely has the medal haul to back that up.

But tactics and formations in football are an area that is constantly in flux. Continual evolution is the only way to stay afloat in this ultra-competitive world, and tiki-taka, for instance, which at one point was considered the best path to victory, has now largely been overhauled despite only coming into vogue a decade ago.

And at Manchester United, Mourinho’s pragmatic style – defensive, and still based heavily around physicality and man-to-man oriented pressing – felt at best a throwback to a previous era, and at worst completely out of date.

Mourinho could well succeed at Tottenham with his current style, but it’s a major question mark – especially as Spurs had become used to playing in a very modern counter-attacking way under Mauricio Pochettino. And if he is past his sell-by-date, then he’s the wrong choice for Spurs.