Jose Mourinho has endured a difficult start to his Tottenham Hotspur reign.
Shaun Wright-Phillips has shared how Jose Mourinho used to always be ‘pre-meditated’ when he used to manage him at Chelsea and how ‘player power’ has changed things for him at Tottenham, and at his previous club.
The self-proclaimed ‘special one’ took the reigns at Tottenham in November, and since his arrival, he has produced a number of mixed results and performances.
Previously, Mourinho first made a name for himself at Stamford Bridge during the mid-noughties when he challenged a then-dominant Manchester United side, and Arsenal team, to numerous trophies.
Speaking to Goals on Sunday (08/03/20 at 12:10 pm), Wright-Phillips, who worked under Mourinho’s stewardship shared what he was like on the training field.
“In training, the main thing that I noticed he was quite always pre-meditated,” Wright-Phillips told Sky Sports. “It always felt like that he was four days ahead of everybody else, including the media.
“The Spurs game [quarter-final game against Chelsea in 2007]. On the Thursday, he said ‘right, I’m not going to start you, but if we are down at half-time, I’m going to bring you on, we are going to draw and then we are going to go to WHL and win the game’. I thought ‘okay, no-one can predict that’. [But], he brought us on, we drew, went to Spurs and we won.
“That, for me, summed him up. He just knew what was going on all the time. He was so well advanced of things. We would always train ahead of the game. So, by the time Friday comes for the Saturday game, we have already started preparing for the game in midweek or for the following Saturday. We were always ahead.”
Last season, Mourinho was in charge of Manchester United before he was sacked by the club during the Christmas period of 2018 – and even though he lifted trophies at the club, he found life tough, especially with the players.
Following his recent criticism of Tanguy Ndombele, it seems as though Mourinho is treading down that same path, as Wright-Phillips admitted that he is surprised at how things have gone for his former boss in recent times.
On whether it surprises him how his career is going: “It does. It’s different times, as well,” Wright-Phillips added. “Back when he was doing ever so well. I feel like player power wasn’t a thing. If the manager told you to do something or this is how we are going to play, that’s what you went out there and done. Now, I feel in certain aspects, the bigger players don’t want to do that.
“If you go back to his time at Man United, when he got the sack, and Solskjaer comes in and the same 10 players go unbeaten 10 games in a row. It doesn’t really happen like that – That’s how much power players have, if they get the dressing room things can go difficult for managers.”
Mourinho has had to contend with a number of injuries since his arrival, and the fact that he hasn’t had any pre-season training with these players hasn’t helped his cause.
His main job is to seemingly guide the club to Champions League football, but given some of their performances and results, it does seem as though they may fall short during this campaign.
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