Tottenham Hotspur have now lost three Premier League games in a row for the first time since 2012 but an under-pressure Jose Mourinho is still confident that he will bring trophies to the club and deliver long term success.
Under-Pressure Jose Mourinho Must Change Run of Results
Poor Run of Form and Worrying Performances Have Put Mourinho Under Pressure
In December 2020, Jose Mourinho had Tottenham Hotspur at the top of the Premier League and fans dreaming of a title challenge. A strong performance and unlucky defeat away to Liverpool removed them from the top.
It has been a disturbing decline ever since, leading to an under-pressure Jose Mourinho coming under fire from fans and the media.
Spurs are now seven points off the top four and title talk has long since been quelled.
Mourinho says he is fully aware of the pressure he is under but said in his press conference ahead of Sunday’s game against West Bromwich Albion that the most pressure comes from himself;
“I put pressure on myself every day. I don’t need others to put pressure on me. I put pressure on myself every day.” (Football.London)
Last Three Games for Spurs Highlight Serious Issues
Mourinho builds teams from a defensive standpoint but the last three Premier League games have highlighted defensive errors and a lack of goals. Spurs’ last goal came in the 3-1 home defeat to Liverpool and in the subsequent games against Brighton and Hove Albion and Chelsea not only did Spurs not score but they rarely troubled the opposition keeper. Edouard Mendy in the Chelsea goal didn’t have to make a single save until the 89th minute in the 1-0 win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
The defeat to Liverpool was limp and lacking in defensive cohesion and attacking flair. Mourinho was clearly unhappy with that defeat so a positive response was the least that anyone would have expected.
Sixteen shots and nine corners (BBC Sport) would have shown that a more attacking style was played but these statistics were for Brighton who with the greatest respect are in a relegation fight. They looked like the team wanting a top-four finish with Tottenham giving the ball away time and time again. Managers take the brunt of the blame when things are not going well but the idea that a winner like Mourinho is telling players to pass to the opposition is absurd.
Mourinho’s former club were next and Spurs mustered just two shots on target and had just 42% of the possession. Chelsea did not create many clear cut chances but the times that they got in behind the Spurs defence was almost embarrassing. Chelsea’s winner that came from the penalty spot resulted from defending from Eric Dier that pub levels fans would have been amazed by. With other defenders around to deal with the position, Dier was on the ground and kept hacking at the ball and ultimately hacked down his opponent to concede the spot-kick.
Missing Kane Not to Blame for Poor Form
Harry Kane being injured is always going to be bad news for Spurs but his absence is not a cause of the current run of bad form. Tottenham still have Son Heung-Min, Gareth Bale, Carlos Vinicius, Lucas Moura and Steven Bergwijn in their ranks so trying to argue that they have no options is simply not the case. The issue is that when these players do get the chance to play they fail to deliver.
In fairness to Vinicius, his start against Chelsea was his first in the Premier League for Spurs and he lacked any service until the 88th minute when he headed wide. He should have buried the chance as it was a free header but he had spent the previous 87 minutes being ignored by his teammates when they did have the ball which wasn’t that often. When Spurs did have the ball they passed to anyone but those in white.
Moura will be a Spurs legend for his hat trick in the Champions League semi-final against Ajax but he rarely starts and when he does he doesn’t deliver. He puts in the effort and runs around a lot but running around doesn’t always deliver results and football is about results.
Bergwijn has been strong helping out defensively but he is a winger and in that position has been ineffective. According to PremierLeague.com, of the 15 matches he has played he has made two assists. Two. For a winger in the Premier League that is not even close to being good enough.
Then there is Gareth Bale.
Gareth Bale: A PR Stunt That Has Failed in a Big Way
Bringing Gareth Bale back to Spurs was supposed to be a match made in heaven. Out of favour at Real Madrid, a return to Spurs was a mouth-watering prospect for fans and had Harry Redknapp telling Sky Sports News that Spurs could win the title. Two starts in the Premier League and he has been ineffective. He has not been tracking back and when he started in the defeat to Brighton he looked anything but a ‘World Class’ player.
The signing of Bale on loan has fast become a PR stunt from Daniel Levy that looks like being an expensive and fruitless experiment. A prime example of this was against Chelsea when Spurs had a late free-kick in prime Bale territory. Dier took it and was not close to troubling Mendy. Leaving Bale on the bench when losing 1-0 at home in a London Derby was further evidence of this PR stunt gone wrong. Moura and Erik Lamela were brought on to change the game. Other than that Ajax game for Moura, neither are proven game-changers.
Midfield Lacking Creativity
Moussa Sissoko is a regular for Mourinho and has started 17 matches. He has created not one assist in the league (Transfermrkt.com). In total in all competitions this season he has played 28 times and made one assist. It may be argued that Sissoko is a defensive midfielder yet in the league he is averaging just 1.3 tackles and 1.3 interceptions per game. (WhoScored.com) No creativity and not doing his defensive duties well either.
Dele Alli has spent most of this season frozen out by Mourinho and is currently injured but he is undoubtedly more creative than Sissoko or Harry Winks.
Lo Celso is also out and although he is yet to hit top form, he can create things for Spurs. How Mourinho replaces the lack of creativity is a question that he is failing to answer. Without creativity, Mourinho seems intent on focusing on letting the opposition have the ball and try to counter-attack but the last three games show that his players are doing neither well. That is the issue that is causing pressure on Mourinho yet he remains confident he is still the man to bring success.
Under-Pressure Jose Mourinho Can Still Deliver Success
Mourinho is the first Spurs manager to lose three Premier League games in a row since Andre Villas Boas in 2012 and has rightly been questioned on this. In typical Mourinho style he turned the question on its head in his press conference: “So since 2012 without three defeats in a row?
“But since when without a title?”
A member of the media provided the answer of 1961 to which the Spurs boss replied: “Maybe I can give one.”
That was typically bullish of the Portuguese manager but if he believes that he can deliver a first title since 1961 it will not be this season and he will need to freshen up a team that is still filled with players who ultimately cost Mauricio Pochettino his job at Spurs.
Those same players are not doing anything well right now and unless Mourinho changes the attitude and the form they might just cost him his job as well.
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