Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy chose Jose Mourinho over Everton boss Carlo Ancelotti in the Autumn of 2019 due to the Portuguese’s ‘winning aura’, as reported by The Athletic.
Flash forward 17 months and it is tempting to wonder whether Levy made the wrong choice.
On Friday night, as Everton met Tottenham at Goodison Park, one of the two sides looked directionless, leaderless and lacking any sort of a tactical blueprint.
And we are not talking about Ancelotti’s Toffees.
Everton outplayed the visitors throughout and, if it wasn’t for some wasteful finishing at one end and Harry Kane’s heroics at the other, Mourinho’s ill-fated Tottenham era would have ended with a defeat rather than a rather undeserving draw.
So if Levy could turn back time, the Spurs chief would be forgiven for choosing the affable, grandfatherly figure of Ancelotti over Mourinho’s militant, ‘poke-the-tiger’ brand of coaching by confrontation.
The Athletic reports that it was Mourinho’s ‘winning aura’ which convinced Levy to hand him the keys to Mauricio Pochettino’s machine. Little did he know back then that Jose would crash it into a wall; a once-well ran club now in need of serious repairs.
And it is not as if Ancelotti doesn’t possess a ‘winning aura’ all of his own, either.
This is a coach who has lifted silverware with Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Juventus and Chelsea after all.
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