If you could pick just one shining light of the Jose Mourinho reign in North London so far, it would undoubtedly be the return to form for a certain Mr Dele Alli.
The midfielder has been pushed up into his favoured number 10 position again, rather than left-mid or holding roles that were handed to him by Pochettino at times.
Alli has repaid the faith in him with four goals in four games under Jose, including a brace against Bournemouth and a goal away to Manchester United in the last week.
While the goals against the Cherries were enough to help Spurs towards all three points, the same cannot be said about the Man United game.
Dele Alli drew Spurs level after an early Marcus Rashford strike, but Spurs conceded a penalty within the first couple of minutes of the second half and never recovered.
One journalist told Mourinho that Dele had described Tottenham’s approach as ‘arrogant and over-confident’, to which Jose replied (Football London):
“I didn’t [see that], to be honest, I tried to fight that exact state of mind. I tried, I tried to tell them exactly the way United approach these matches they had at home, against Liverpool and Chelsea, always strong starts with people running and pressing the ball, with people trying to lift the morale of the supporters. Normally they come from bad results against smaller teams so when they face the big teams, people think ‘this is going to be more difficult for them’.
“It’s not more difficult for them, because then the responsibilities change and I think they feel more comfortable in this style of play. So in the second half, we knew what we were going to do, with the score 1-1, then you conceded a goal after one minute. So we have to blame ourselves. United must obviously be happy with the points and overall they deserve it.”
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