Jose Mourinho and Tottenham would currently be fourth in the Premier League if the table had started when the Special One took over in November 2019 (Daily Mail).
Only Liverpool, Man City, and Man United have more points than Spurs since Mourinho joined, despite the manager inheriting a 14th placed side.
However, the man himself has now claimed that the Lilywhites would be even higher if they had not been forced to deal with such extreme injury problems.
When Mourinho first arrived at the club, he had to navigate injuries to the likes of Hugo Lloris, Ben Davies, Tanguy Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso, and more.
Come the turn of the new decade, Mourinho then lost Harry Kane and Moussa Sissoko to long-term injuries that required surgery, before Heung-min Son suffered a similar fate in February.
Due to these issues, Mourinho argued that Tottenham deserve to at least finish in the Europa League positions this season, with Champions League now an impossibility.
In his press conference, Mourinho said (Football London): “I think Spurs would be even better than that without all the problems that we had. I think no other team had even similar problems to that. As I was saying, in the most difficult moment of the season I was just speaking about surviving, surviving was to leave us in a position where we could eventually fight for that.
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“The fact that we’re fourth since my arrival, without Lloris, Harry Kane, Sissoko, Son, without almost everybody, is a good reflection of the potential that we have, the work we’re all doing.
“That’s why I say the minimum we deserve is to finish in a position to keep us in European football, a competition that we don’t deserve. It’s not our level, we’re better than that, but still European competition.
“Football is not about what you deserve, it’s about what you effectively get. So we can’t say we deserve it and then don’t get points in these two matches. So we need to win matches now.”
If Mourinho had been at Spurs at the start of the season and had a fully-fit squad throughout, would the club be in the top three?
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