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It is the 24th meeting between José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, and some of their battles in El Clásico reached notable levels of conflict.
What stood out in last season’s All or Nothing documentary was how Mourinho told his new team what he thought of them almost immediately. “A really nice bunch of guys,” he said. ‘For 90 minutes you have to be a bunch of …’
Suffice it to say, Mourinho wanted his team to be nasty. He wanted his players to capture his fighting personality and apply it on the field. I wanted his mentality to be petty, aggressive, ruthless. I wanted them to be addicted to winning, obsessed with results.
His team has taken that into account, and Mourinho is now looking back at his prime. If it weren’t for that wonderful injury-time goal by West Ham’s Manuel Lanzini, the last time the Spurs lost points in the league, they would top the table.
In that documentary, after Eric Dier and Dele Alli argue in the locker room after a loss to the Wolves, Mourinho goes through the team listing the good individual performances of the players. Then he says, ‘But this is not about being happy with individual performance. It’s about being happy with the result. ‘
Mourinho is now getting the results he wants from key players. One of them is Harry Kane, who is scoring, assisting, and raising issues when landing deep, as noted earlier in this column.
Another providing results is Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. The last time I spoke to him, he was in Southampton last year and he said, ‘We want to be disgusting to play against.
No Premier League player gained possession more than Hojbjerg in 2019-20. He’s crafty and he’s brought him to Tottenham. Perhaps in the past, opponents would look at the Spurs and think they had a soft belly. “Guys, it’s Tottenham,” Sir Alex Ferguson said in a team talk.
But Hojbjerg is helping to change that perception, and he can play too. No player has passed the ball more in the Premier League this season than the Dane.
Gareth Bale is moving through the gears, having played his first 90 full minutes since early September for Wales during halftime. Perhaps now he’s ready to explode again on the Premier League scene. Mourinho’s management of Bale has been impressive. But it’s hard to agree with everything the 57-year-old says and does. His treatment of Alli seems harsh, for example. If Alli returns to the team as a better player, then it might be easier to understand.
Nor do I agree with the manager using social media to publicly question players. His comments on Gareth Southgate, Guardiola and Raheem Sterling were surprising. Still, that shows Mourinho’s competitiveness, and Tottenham with their Portuguese coach has become a results-based team that manages matches very well. They can successfully press high, or sit deep and make themselves hard to beat.
They have won three league games in a row by a single goal, against Burnley, Brighton and West Brom. They have a breakneck pace that they use at halftime with Kane showing great desire and bonding with Son Heung-min, whose ending is outstanding.
Mourinho has made good decisions with his squad. His assistant, Joao Sacramento, was personally chosen and is one of the best young coaches in the game. Former captain Ledley King is another on his backroom staff, and it’s good to see that Mourinho has recognized Dier’s rightful position in central defense.
This is a coach who has been at Tottenham for a year and seems as addicted as ever to getting results.
City are not where they want to be, in 10th place, but Guardiola signing that two-year contract was key to their future success. That is the first step of its reconstruction. With Vincent Kompany and David Silva out, and Sergio Agüero and Fernandinho reaching the end of their time, it is a new beginning.
Kevin De Bruyne looks like he’s going nowhere and is the man around whom the team should be built. In his last outing, against Liverpool, he played later, with Rodri and Ilkay Gundogan deeper. When de Bruyne got into spaces of space between lines, that’s when City made things happen.
With the long-standing rivalry between these managers, the ingredients are there for an intriguing encounter. Mourinho v Guardiola is a highly successful battle.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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