Tottenham Hotspur lost to West Ham today, their fifth loss in their last six games. Since the start of the new year, they have only taken seven points out of 24 available, which has made them solidly mediocre and virtually ensured that their only way to the Champions League next season is by winning the Europa League.
After that, Spurs manager Jose Mourinho made even more news for all the wrong reasons, blaming the poor results on his players and sticking to his coaching methods, although Spurs slipped further and further off the table.
Here’s what he told the BBC just after the game on the sidelines that caused such a flurry of fluff.
‘I feel that we are not in a position in relation to our potential. Even though I think for a long, long time that we have problems in the team that I can not solve myself as a coach.
“Our potential is higher than where we are. Of course there is frustration. We should be in a better position. ”
Sounds bad with the first blush, right? It sure sounds like he’s not only throwing his team under the bus, but also chasing after them a few times to make sure.
But hey – if you want to read these quotes generously, and let’s do it for the sake of argument, you can go head to head saying that what Mourinho was trying to do was that the team did not reach its potential. even with some staff shortages, but also that he does not maximize the talent he has do at his disposal. It is said in an artistic way, but he is also not a native English speaker. So maybe he’s taking responsibility for the results under his leadership in a strange way
But when he said this at the press conference before the composite media when asked about his own methods:
What gives you so much faith [in your methods] at the moment, considering the course of the results?
“Sometimes the results are the result of various situations in football and mine, and my coach’s methods are no different in the world.”
LOL does not matter. It circles straight around him to throw his players under the bus. Why should he accept responsibility when his players are clearly not good enough to do what he asks?
If we will now remain generous with Mourinho and we have gone so far as to why, then he is not entirely wrong. Tottenham were plagued by individual errors in this bad form, errors that were quite disastrous. He is also not entirely wrong, as some of the players he has at his disposal may not be good enough for what he wants to achieve with this Spurs team. That’s not entirely a crazy thing to think about, especially since it looks like Spurs are still recovering from the ‘painful rebuild’ that never took place throughout the year without buying players. Tottenham need quite a bit of help, especially in defense! This is undoubtedly an area of concern.
But to speak to the media in public and say so while at the same time defending the same tedious tactics and methods that led to Mourinho being fired from his last three posts is at this point only intentional ignorance and the culmination of hubris. Throwing players under the bus will do nothing to motivate the same players to turn things around in a magical way. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.
It does nothing but try to serve its own image at the expense of the players. Introduce yourself to the club.
Be respectful of yourself. Spurs fans.
– NathanAClark (@NathanAClark) 21 February 2021
On top of that, it’s odd that some of the same players they’re currently mocking for their performances – Davinson Sanchez and Eric Dier chief among them, but even Toby Alderweireld the critics did not escape the season – are mostly considered solid defenders. under Mauricio Pochettino. You can actually extrapolate and notice that the whole team looked less like an organized unit and more like a collection of individual players who are told to ‘go out and make magic happen’. When the organization fails, it puts extra strain and pressure on the defense, and the mistakes made become greater.
Good players rarely suddenly become just bad players. It can happen, but it is unusual. Strange that this is still happening to Jose during his last few works, isn ‘t it? The changed variable in this case is Mourinho himself.
I’m tired of shouting about Jose Mourinho. I wish I didn’t have to do this so often. People in turn are going to yell at me in the comments for this and quite possibly say I am unfair and biased towards a driver I admittedly never wanted to start. But anyone who thinks situations like this – criticizing players if the results do not go right and relinquishing personal responsibility – are unique to this season has not paid much attention to Jose Mourinho’s career. The same thing happened again and again and again.
When Mourinho was appointed, he explicitly stated that he was satisfied with the group at his disposal, that it was an excellent group of players who, under his leadership, had the potential to win the Premier League. He has been appointed as the general manager who can maximize this talented group and immediately get where they can win things. Fifteen months later he fights with players again, throws his team under the bus and says ‘hey, my methods are great, it’s these schmucks that underperform.’ And if that’s true, why did Mourinho initially take the job, and why do we pay this master tactician £ 15 million a year if we could literally hire anyone else to start a new five-year project and rebuild the group? ? very different expectations?
By all accounts, Mourinho will have until the end of the current Premier League campaign to save something from what has become an absolute train wreck of a season. He has the Europa League and the Carabao Cup final in April as the best opportunities to win silverware. Maybe he can do it. I really hope he can, and I will root for him to do so. But he certainly does not make it easy.