Tony Cascarino says Jose Mourinho has struggled to come in halfway through the season.
Tony Cascarino feels Jose Mourinho has struggled at Tottenham with coming in during the middle of the season for the first time since 2002.
In the Times, Cascarino says that’s part of the season Mourinho’s bounce has faded away and expects a mass clearout at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium during the summer.
He said: “Every time José Mourinho has taken over as manager since 2002 it has been before the start of the season, so historically he has always had a summer transfer window and pre-season to work with his new team. But he took over at Tottenham in November and in many ways he has been a bit of a rookie in terms of coming in the middle of the season.
“Although they did start to win games in the classic José way initially, that has dropped off. We talk all the time about how hard it is to get January transfers right and that applies to managers as well — he has found it really difficult. The squad has been failing for a long time, even when Kane and Son were fit, and José admitted it is completely unbalanced.
“Expect several players to be shown the exit in the summer.”
The luxury of Mourinho’s career is he has always been able to pick and choose his jobs carefully, meaning he can wait until the summer to take charge of teams and bend them to his will.
But the damage to his reputation after Chelsea and Manchester United both sacked him in the middle of a season meant he had to change tack to get back in at Tottenham.
As Cascarino says, he’s clearly struggled. But even with full pre-seasons at United, he was struggling to get players to play their best for him or to showcase coaching methods which are at home in the modern game.
Tottenham do need to refresh their squad and it remains to be seen if Mourinho is able to effectively carry it out. His reputation would likely not survive another high-profile failure.
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