Till slut har Mourinho fått sparken. Jonathan Wilson:
It’s rare to be able to pinpoint the exact moment when it all begins to go wrong, but in this case you can. Spurs had played well at Anfield. They had sat deep and gone behind but mugged Liverpool on the break to equalise. They kept threatening to nick a second. Harry Kane bounced a header over and Steven Bergwijn hit a post. It was reactive football of the sort that isn’t supposed to work in the modern game, but the Covid world is not a normal world: other rules apply. And Mourinho had some of the old swagger back. It had become possible to remember how he had once charmed English football.
Then, with 14 minutes remaining, Mourinho took off Bergwijn and replaced him with Sergio Reguilón. Perhaps there was some tactical logic. Play two left‑backs, pin Trent Alexander‑Arnold back. But it altered the dynamic of the game. Liverpool had become anxious, aware that the more they attacked, the more exposed they became. But a defensive substitution changed that. Tottenham were blunted. Liverpool poured forward, applied pressure and scored the winner from a corner. Psychologically, Mourinho had misread the play and in one substitution surrendered the game and with it the title challenge and perhaps his long‑term future at Tottenham.
Mourinho once was a master of such things. The Porto squad he led to the Champions League in 2004 still talk of him like a cult leader, remembering his apparent capacity to see into the future, how the world seemed to fall into line with his vision. But at Anfield, he saw only fear.
Och han ser mönstret upprepa sig:
"The pattern is the same as at Real Madrid, at Chelsea and at Manchester United: a manager deflecting attention as toxicity seeps through the club and performances deteriorate. Perhaps it’s come a year earlier than the classic Mourinho template would dictate but, essentially, it’s different players, same coach, same outcome."
Dan Kilpatrick:
His tenure ultimately followed a grimly predictable pattern, only in double the usual speed.
Just as at all of his previous clubs, he prompted an initial upturn in results, oversaw a period of investment in the squad and briefly led the side to the top – albeit, in this case, a 25-day sojourn to first place in the Premier League in November and December.
Then things began to unravel. /.../
The comments of captain Hugo Lloris afterwards [efter EL-förlusten mot Zagreb] confirmed that Mourinho was presiding over a fractured dressing-room – another hallmark of his notorious "death spiral".
There were characteristic clashes with players. Members of the squad and staff were baffled when Mourinho claimed Toby Alderweireld missed the recent draw at Newcastle after only joining training the day before, despite the centre-half reporting back from international duty three days prior.
Dele Alli was hooked at half-time of the opening-day defeat to Everton and thereafter almost completely sidelined.
Mourinho was reluctant to use Gareth Bale and, while the loan signing often looked like a player who did not fully trust his body, the manager's use of him felt like point-scoring.
Mourinho was open in telling people at the club that he would have preferred to use the money spent on Bale's wages on a new defender.
The state of his defence is an area where Mourinho deserved sympathy but he played a difficult hand poorly, frequently criticising his defenders publicly and rotating his side to the point where the entire back-line was shorn of belief and petrified of making an error.
If Mourinho paid the price for Tottenham's lack of sound investment (last summer's signing of Sergio Reguilon was the first genuine upgrade to the defence since Alderweireld in 2015), many of Spurs' defenders actively deteriorated under the guidance of a supposed specialist in the area.
Their rapid fall down the League since mid-December was beset by defensive errors, including in the 3-1 defeat to Liverpool when all three of the visitors’ goals came from individual mistakes.
Mourinho came to look at a complete loss to stop his side from shipping goals but never acknowledged that his conservative tactics were a large part of the problem, leaving his defenders under sustained pressure until they eventually cracked.
Time and again, Spurs tried and failed to protect leads and they have dropped 20 points from winning positions this season, more than any other top-flight club.
When he arrived at Spurs, Mourinho painted himself as a changed man and he did attempt to make compromises that would have been unlikely earlier in his career.
Tanguy Ndombele was given a second chance after a difficult maiden season at the club and the Frenchman dramatically improved this term, to Mourinho's credit.
He will also leave a legacy of handing debuts to hugely promising youngsters Dane Scarlett and Alfie Devine, and of course a place in the Carabao Cup Final – albeit after a kind run to Wembley.
The sorry truth, however, is that Mourinho improved next to nothing about Spurs, with the possible exception of Harry Kane.
The England captain's insatiable desire for self-improvement seems as likely a cause for his remarkable form as Mourinho's promise to take him "universal",' however.
By the end, Mourinho's Spurs were a shell of a side, devoid of belief, structure, energy, organisation and entirely reliant on Kane to keep the manager's unravelling tenure afloat.
The main positive for the club is that his reign should be relatively easy to unpick.
Most of his signings joined on short-term or temporary deals, while the club blocked his wishes which might have done long-term damage, like selling Ndombele or Dele."
Jonathan Wilson, "Reguilón on for Bergwijn: how José Mourinho blew Spurs’ title charge", The Guardian Sportblog 10 april 2021.
Miguel Delaney, "Tottenham become latest to declare Jose Mourinho old news", The Independent, 19 april.
Dan Kilpatrick, "Jose Mourinho leaves Tottenham in a worse position than he found them as Special One’s magic fades at Spurs", Evening Standard 19 april.
