Former Arsenal striker Charlie Nicholas has claimed that Jose Mourinho has failed at his primary objective this season, which was to get Tottenham into the Champions League.
Tottenham’s performances and results have been rather mixed under Mourinho’s reign since the Special One took over in November 2019.
There was an immediate upturn in form when the Portuguese coach arrived to replace Pochettino before the form levelled off by the turn of a year.
A series of injuries then meant that the Lilywhites went on a run of six straight losses, with lockdown coming at the exact right time for the club.
The team’s form after the restart was much improved, with the defence looking much more solid and the team far better drilled in break-away football.
A strong end to the season enabled Tottenham to sneak into the Europa League places but Nicholas claimed that he has not seen enough from Mourinho’s men to convince him that they are much better than their North London rivals.
In his end-of-season grading of all Premier League clubs, the pundit gave Tottenham’s season a ‘C’ and told Sky Sports: “When I saw them qualifying for the Europa League, I thought that was weird. Am I jealous being an Arsenal fan? No, not really.
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“Spurs have always had this thing about Arsenal finishing above them, and in the last few seasons, they’ve reversed the roles. That was because they were a much better team than Arsenal – but they’re not much better than them now.
“Jose Mourinho’s target was to get into the Champions League, not the Europa League. That’s what this stadium was built for; there are problems defensively, he doesn’t know what his best partnership is at the back, and can they keep Harry Kane?
“I don’t think some of the players have adapted to his way. But in the judgement of the season they’ve had, it’s been up and down, pretty average.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I like the job Mikel Arteta has done at Arsenal and I believe he will eventually make them a decent outfit. However, we are still far ahead of the Gunners because of the quality of our squad and the value of our biggest assets. Arteta has a much bigger rebuilding job on his hands than Jose does and I would be surprised if Arsenal managed to finish in the top four for the next couple of seasons.
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