Journalist Matt Davies-Adams has recently been talking about Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho and the situation he finds himself in now and how it is different from before the lockdown.
Davies-Adams recently appeared on the ‘Totally Football Show’ podcast and he was talking about Spurs boss Mourinho. The panel was talking about Spurs’ 1-1 draw against Manchester United on Friday and Davies-Adams delivered his verdict on the challenges that lie ahead of Mourinho at this point.
Mourinho had Harry Kane, Moussa Sissoko and Heung-min Son available to play in the game against the Red Devils and all of them featured in the match too. It was Steven Bergwijn who scored for the Lilywhites before Bruno Fernandes scored from the spot for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men (via WhoScored).
When talking about the game and Mourinho, specifically, Davies-Adams said (16:12): “I think Mourinho’s problem between now and the end of the season is that he had his excuses nicely lined up before we had the break.
Was Mourinho making 'excuses' earlier in the season?
Yes, he was making them!
No, he was saying the right things
“You know, I haven’t had a preseason with these players, Harry Kane’s injured, Son’s injured, Sissoko’s injured. Well, all those players are back now and he has effectively had a preseason with them.”
Davies-Adams also talked about Kane and his return to action against United.
He said (16:29): “The Kane thing was interesting for me. I was doing this with [Ruben] Loftus-Cheek actually before the Chelsea game today. I’m thinking, well, there’s a huge benefit for people like Loftus-Cheek and Harry Kane because you come back from an injury and people say- well you’re lacking match fitness. You’re lacking that sharpness.
“Well, so was everybody else going into this game because nobody else had played for three months either. But it was really stark that Kane and Loftus-Cheek both looked so far off the pace having been out for so long.
“So maybe, it’s just not fair to expect Kane to be even at 60-70% of his capacity yet when he hasn’t played for so long just because nobody else has played for a long time either.”
Davies-Adams is pretty clear in saying that Mourinho now has no ‘excuses’ to fall back on, even though Kane might take a while to get back to his 100 per cent.
TIF Thoughts…
Mourinho indeed had Son, Kane and Sissoko out of action due to injury pre-lockdown and while Davies-Adams goes on to refer to that as ‘excuses’, those are rather believable reasons for why Spurs are currently eighth in the Premier League table. And it could also be a reason why they have generated the tenth-best xG in the league this season.
But now that they are back, Spurs can certainly look forward to possibly securing a European finish. They are currently only four points behind Man United, who are in fifth and are nine points behind fourth-placed Chelsea (via Understat).
The returns of Kane, Son and Sissoko are a boost for Mourinho and the fact that the club has already faced Man City, Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea twice this season, may mean that they have a favourable fixture list on their hands for what is left in the season.