Yahoo Sports Tottenham fires manager Jose Mourinho after 17 months
Tottenham Hotspur announced on Monday that manager Jose Mourinho has been fired after 17 months on the job, just six days before the club will play Manchester City in the League Cup final.
“Jose and his coaching staff have been with us through some of our most challenging times as a club,” Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy said in a statement. “Jose is a true professional who showed enormous resilience during the pandemic. On a personal level I have enjoyed working with him and regret that things have not worked out as we both had envisaged. He will always be welcome here and we should like to thank him and his coaching staff for their contribution.”
Mourinho's coaching staff, Joao Sacramento, Nuno Santos, Carlos Lalin, and Giovanni Cerra, have also been relieved of their duties.
What led to this?
Mourinho, 58, is considered to be one of the best managers of all time, and he was hired to take the Spurs to the next level after their previous manager, Mauricio Pochettino, couldn't repeat the success he had with the team in the first half of 2019. Pochettino took the Spurs to their first-ever Champions Cup final in May 2019, and was fired six months later with the team in 14th.
Despite his pedigree, Mourinho couldn't improve on Pochettino's accomplishments. The Spurs finished sixth in the Premier League last year, and despite being in first in December, are currently seventh. They were knocked out of the Europa League last month and have only a remote chance of qualifying for the Champions League next year. In all, this has been Mourinho's worst season as a manager, with 13 losses across all competitions.
It's more than performance, though. According to The Athletic and ESPN, both players and club leadership were not happy with Mourinho constantly criticizing his own players after losses.
Is this related to the Super League?
The Athletic reported that Mourinho's firing isn't related to Sunday's announcement about the Super League, which shocked the soccer community around the world.
Tottenham is one of 12 top European clubs (along with AC Milan, Arsenal, Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, and Manchester United) that would be part of this controversial league, but the decision to fire Mourinho was reportedly made separately from any Super League decisions.
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