Chris Sutton has stated that Tottenham’s 3-1 loss to Manchester United and Jose Mourinho’s reaction to the defeat is proof that the Spurs head coach’s time as a top-level manager is over.
There was a major fallout from Mourinho’s comments after Spurs 2-2 draw at St James’ Park last Sunday. Reports indicate that Spurs players are ‘fed up’ at constantly being told they are not good enough.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Toby Alderweireld has made his mind up to leave the club as he feels he was scapegoated for no reason when Mourinho said after the Newcastle draw that the 32-year-old did not return from international duty early enough to be involved in training.
The Tottenham boss confronted the media on Friday about their reportage, accusing them of speculating on the Alderweireld incident without knowing the facts of the matter.
However, he was much more constrained in what he said after Spurs’ 3-1 defeat yesterday, insisting that he was happy with his players’ efforts and that his side deserved more from the game.
Sutton wrote in The Daily Mail about Tottenham’s performance: “When Jose Mourinho came to this country in 2004, he was this funny, smart, charismatic Portuguese chap promising to take the Premier League by storm.
“He followed through on that promise, rather brilliantly. But that man is gone.
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“The Mourinho who won three titles with remarkable charisma has been replaced by a Mourinho who holds up three fingers to the world and scowls.
“He is a frustrated, confrontational, irritable figure and living on past glories. There was no glory to be had in Sunday’s performance, despite Mourinho claiming Tottenham played well against Manchester United.
“They didn’t, and any Spurs supporter watching from home knows that.”
Sutton insisted that Tottenham are showing the same signs of decline that Manchester United did during Mourinho’s final few months at the club.
He added: “That’s 10 league defeats for Mourinho now — the first time he’s hit that total in a campaign in his career.
“On Sunday night he came out with: ‘I cannot say what I think.’ That wasn’t the case last week when we heard him blame the team after Tottenham drew 2-2 at Newcastle.
“That ‘same coach, different players’ comment will not have gone down well in the changing room. It doesn’t inspire the troops to run through brick walls for you.
“Taking on the Spurs job was never going to be easy, but Mourinho is not making a success of it.
“Luke Shaw was flying down the wing in front of him. What a transformation we’ve seen in the England left-back.
“Under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, he’s excelling. Under Mourinho, he crumbled. And now that is what’s happening to this Tottenham team.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Mourinho is certainly deserving of criticism for our form over the last few months as he is the one responsible for motivating the players and getting them to follow his tactical instructions. However, I did not feel that there was a lot wrong with our performance on Sunday.
We were up against the second-best team in the league and we looked to dominate the ball and play out from the back. We had success doing so for large parts of the game and did create opportunities. However, United were more clinical in the final third and our central defenders struggled to cope with the movement of their forwards.
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