Tottenham Hotspur have opted to replace Mauricio Pochettino with Jose Mourinho this morning.
Jose Mourinho has taken the Tottenham Hotspur job, and one of the most pressing matters he has to deal with will be sorting out the futures of Christian Eriksen, Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen.
Eriksen, Alderweireld and Vertonghen are all set to leave Tottenham at the end of the season as things stand, as their contracts still have not been sorted.
Mauricio Pochettino arguably didn’t manage the trio particularly well in his final few months with the club, with his team selections often muddled.
Vertonghen, Alderweireld and Eriksen were all used sporadically for Tottenham before being dropped with their form poor.
The trio are obviously three of Tottenham’s most integral players, so opting to get rid of them would be a tough decision.
But that is exactly what Mourinho suggested that Spurs should have done last summer.
“I always felt that the biggest investment Tottenham could do is what they did in previous seasons, which was to keep their best players. That’s the best investment you can do,” he said to Sky Sports last month.
“Some clubs can do both – keep the best players and buy other top players. Some, they don’t and they have to make a choice. I feel Spurs showed clearly that they felt the group was fantastic, with a lot of English players, and they were close to creating history.
“I don’t like to keep players who don’t want to stay at the club. I’m not even thinking of the economical perspective, but the emotion of the player.
“We loved [Arjen] Robben and wanted to keep him [at Chelsea], but he wanted to join Real Madrid, so there are some moments when motivation affects the performance and it’s very difficult to keep a player really happy when he has other thoughts.”
Whether Mourinho will offload the trio in January now he has taken over at Spurs remains to be seen.
There has been suggestions that Mourinho’s appointment could cause some of Spurs key players’ to change their minds about leaving.
But Mourinho may feel that a big change is needed at Tottenham, judging by his past comments.
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