Former Arsenal star challenges Mourinho to prove he’s still special

Former Arsenal defender Martin Keown believes that Jose Mourinho has to succeed at Tottenham in order to prove that he is still one of the best managers in the world.

Despite being one of the most decorated managers in the history of the game, the Portuguese coach’s last two adventures at Chelsea and Manchester United ended in fairly ugly circumstances.

While he made a great start to his Spurs career after replacing Mauricio Pochettino at the helm back in November, performances and results over recent weeks have suffered.

The Spurs head coach has come in for some stinging criticism for the negative approach he’s employed and Keown too believes that we haven’t seen him evolve enough tactically.

In his column for the Daily Mail, the former England defender wrote: “Mauricio Pochettino was sacked after things went stale and Jose Mourinho was brought in to win trophies. But it feels as if Mourinho is setting his side up to be passive.

“They are playing off the opposition instead of dictating and maybe some of Tottenham’s players are disappointed with this approach.

“Mourinho brought Joao Sacramento, formerly of Lille, with him as an assistant. Sacramento, only 31, is reputed to be a big tactician, but Mourinho is continuing to set up for matches in the same way.”

The 53-year-old, however, said that one cannot count out Mourinho just yet given what he’s achieved in his career but insisted that he needed to turn around Tottenham’s fortunes to save his reputation.

Keown added: “Questions are being asked of the Spurs boss but this is a man who has won 20 major trophies in his career.

“You cannot dismiss somebody with that history of winning, and Mourinho should be looking at this week as a chance to turn things around, with Manchester United to follow on Sunday.

“Go prove you haven’t lost that Midas touch.”

Spurs Web Opinion

I don’t think even Pochettino ever had to deal with the scale of injuries that we’ve had for the past few months during his five and a half years at Spurs. It is important to realise that we are in an extremely unlucky situation at the moment and it is not fair on Jose to judge him until he’s had a preseason to work with the squad.

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