Tottenham Hotspur head coach Jose Mourinho has denied holding any talks with Arsenal’s head of football Raul Sanllehi before taking up the Spurs job.
Mourinho was without a job in football management for eleven months after being sacked by Manchester United last year.
He was appointed as the Spurs new head coach replacing Mauricio Pochettino who was let go after a poor start to the campaign.
Spurs’ North London neighbours Arsenal also sacked their manager Unai Emery on Friday after a string of poor performances and results which has opened up another big managerial job in London. However, Mourinho claimed that joining Arsenal was never on the agenda for him.
Football.London quotes the Spurs boss as saying: “No, no. of course, I never denied, because I never deny things but when it was written that I was in a meeting with Mr Sanllehi it was not true.”
When asked for the reason why he had chosen Tottenham, he admitted that the lure of managing another big club in the Premier League and the structure of the club both appealed to him.
The 56-year-old added: “You know how much I like the Premier League, that’s the first point. You go back to Porto, my first opportunity to leave my country I had lots of options. It was England.
MORE SPURS STORIES
“I was in Real Madrid, probably the dream club for the majority of us. I left Real Madrid to come to the Premier League. Now, I stayed in the Premier League which I always say is my natural habitat. So many years I like it a lot. So that is a point.
“The second point is this club. You know what the club is showing me. The vision they have for the future and everything, they are as a club in terms of structure organisation, feelings, a big club but with a concept of a family, working together with people.”
Spurs Web Opinion
If we are to take what Mourinho is saying at face value, it looks like he very much targetted the Spurs job. Now that he has got it and he has raved about the quality of the squad, he really has no excuses to fall back on. Hopefully his will to prove his critics on drives him on to success at Tottenham.
Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
