Spurs Lacking Direction and Spirit of Creativity

While the results have been good with the arrival of new Spurs boss Jose Mourinho, the games against Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Chelsea may portend that the winning start is more new manager bounce than it is the change Mourinho has brought to Spurs. 

The frightening reality that came from today's winning domination by Chelsea is whether Mourinho will be able to shape a winning mentality in this club or whether the weak mentality witnessed under Pochettino's reign is the actual reality of the club, such that not even a manager like Mourinho can succeed with it. 

Spurs have consistently given up 2 or more goals other than against Wolves, who should have scored more in that meeting and who should be justifiably perplexed that they actually lost. 

Mourinho coming into this game had two things in his favour.  First was his incredible record of 13 home games against former teams where he did not lose against any of them, a home record of Played 13 former teams he managed, Won 12 of them and Drew 1 of them.  On the 14th such game with Spurs, he lost. 

The other thing in his favour is that he was the master and the Chelsea manager was his apprentice.  Neither of these things held up - the apprentice beat the master and in a manner where the Chelsea manager was tactically dominant.

Does that portend other stats such as Mourinho has succeeding in lifting silverware with every team he has managed.  When Mourinho came to Spurs, he held the recognition of the "The Special One".  The Chelsea fans taunted him in today's game that "your not special anymore". 

That must have bit deep into Mourinho's ego.  Worse, the Spurs fans have renamed him "The Spurcial One".  That actually sounds more like Spursy rather than Special - and that connotation is not a good thing - the last thing Spurs needs is a Mourinho that becomes "Spursy".

Then what did not help today is that with Frank Lampard outsmarting his former boss and tactically outplaying him all game long, was the way the fans started leaving the stadium. 

There was a time when Spurs fans would point out to the disloyalty of Arsenal fans who quickly turned against their team when they were losing and left the stadium in droves.  Worse was to come with beer cans and rubbish thrown towards the Chelsea goalkeeper - and then a Chelsea player drawing attention to monkey chants, at a time when the Premier League are actively trying to root racism out of the game.

Those few fans that dishonoured Tottenham, coupled with those who had lost their patience despite picking up 12 points from the last 15 possible points. 

Both Manchester United and Chelsea considerably upped their game so that they could play out of their skins to win against their old manager and Chelsea lost four of their previous five games, so this game was huge for them - either confirming their slide, or becoming a game that came just at the right time to turn momentum.

Sadly for Spurs, not only did the Chelsea players give it their all to try to beat Mourinho, Lampard totally changed his tactics, playing three at the back with two wing backs instead of four - a system ironically that was favoured by Mauricio Pochettino, who did have great success against Chelsea in recent matches.  

All of that changed with Mourinho relying on his past methods, trusting in a system that may now be long in the tooth, trying to behave in a way that suggests he has matured and learned lessons from the way Chelsea players rebelled against him and Manchester United players did not respond either.   Yet he won three titles for Chelsea and coming to Spurs means Chelsea fans no longer care for that.

He also won a European Europa League trophy for Manchester United as well as some minor cups, and helped United to a 2nd place finished in a year when Manchester City were again absolutely dominant.   What today's game showed is that while Spurs are not technically out of the top 4 running, Mourinho needs to win the return game away at Stamford Bridge to put Spurs back in the drivers seat to claim that coveted 4th place for Champions League football.

If he could not beat Bayern, United and Chelsea then the likelihood that he could win the Champions League and qualify that way looks remote.  Over two legs Bayern scored 10 goals against this Tottenham team in the group stages and Bayern sit third in the Bundesliga. 

The team who is currently first RB Liepzig are Tottenham's next opponents as they enter into the knockout phase of the Champions League.  Liepzig are a high pressing high intensity attacking team, exactly the kind of intensity that led to Bayern Munich putting 7 past Tottenham when Pochettino was still at the helm.

As a one off Spurs players today were no where near their best, they had the ignominy of having one weak shot at goal during the whole game and their mistakes were horrific - both defensive lapses, a goalkeeper giving away a needless penalty doing an insane kungfu kick rather than simply grabbing the ball and a rather immature piece of retaliation from Son Heung-Min that the Chelsea player ham acted out to give him a red card. 

Son should have been given the red card no matter how much Rudiger acted like he had been impaled in the chest by Son's cleats - and the referee had no choice to brandish a red card for Son's immature petulance. 

On the other hand Willian was mocking Spurs before the game and drove a dagger into their hearts during the game.  It was Willian who Chelsea "stole" from Spurs while he was receiving a medical to join Tottenham.  Willian took the whole incident of him being taken from under Spurs noses to join Chelsea in the last minute, as an example of the weak minded club Tottenham are. 

Willian carried that psychology into the game and that is what separated Spurs from Chelsea most today, the Chelsea team were ruthless in their pursuit for three points, they played a win at all costs game and Spurs were found really wanting, without any creative ideas - even when Christian Eriksen was introduced.

What happens during this Christmas period will be interesting.  Spurs have three games to come where they on paper should gain 9 points.  Chelsea can still lose some points over the Christmas period because the conditions that spurred them on today is not something a team can repeat at will and other teams will not be in the Spursy way the team played yet again.  A reminder of what Spursy is, is to play like crap when something significant is on the line.  Spurs were crap.