Spurs hoped for Rodgers before Jose took reins

following Pochettino’s dismissal on Tuesday night. One of his first tasks was to address the squad before holding one-on-one talks with key players to outline his vision for the future. Harry Kane was one of the first he spoke to individually. Mourinho sees the striker as integral to his plans and has told chairman Daniel Levy he can’t be sold. Mourinho’s three-and-a-halfyear deal was closed by agent Pini Zahavi, who first brought him to Chelsea in 2004. And the ex-Manchester United boss started the process of trying to repair what has become a disillusioned squad. He issued an impassioned rallying cry to his new charges during an energy-charged meeting, stressing the importance of putting the difficulties of the season behind them to pull together as they look to climb the table. Mourinho also told the squad — who have failed to win a trophy during Pochettino’s five-and-a-half-year reign — they will be successful provided they stick together and that their quality will see them climb the table closer to the Champions League qualification places. He is privately not giving up hope of mounting a challenge to qualify for the Champions

League this season, despite Spurs being currently 11 points adrift of fourth-placed Manchester City. Levy believed the club had no chance of securing a top-four place with Pochettino in charge given the malaise that engulfed Spurs during the final months of his reign. While players were sad to see him leave, there is a general feeling he had to go to halt their alarming slide. Yesterday, Mourinho and his new-look coaching team of Joao Sacramento, Nuno Santos, Carlos Lalin, Giovanni Cerra and Ricardo Formosino impressed the players by arriving with detailed and individualised training plans. He will see how they respond to his methods before deciding whether to enter the transfer market in January. Money will be made available for new signings, but he wants to give the squad a chance to impress before making a final decision on their futures. The 56-year-old will hold talks with all his out-of-contract stars — including Christian Eriksen — to see if they can be persuaded to sign fresh terms, provided they show an appetite to be part of his project. Mourinho has agreed to work within Tottenham’s strict financial framework. He told the club website: ‘I couldn’t be happier and, if I was not as happy as I am, I wouldn’t be here. What can I promise? Passion, real passion. Passion for my job, but also passion for my club, that’s the way I have been all my career and I want to try, obviously, everything to bring happiness to everyone who loves the club. ‘It’s a privilege when a manager goes to a club and feels that happiness in relation to the squad he is going to have. ‘It didn’t happen many times. To be honest, the majority of the times we go to clubs we always think: “We like some, I don’t like enough” and you think immediately about what to do to change, what to do to make an approach between your ideas and the profile of the players. ‘This is a completely different case and these are not words of the moment, these are words that I told and repeated in the last three, four, five years, even as an opponent. ‘I always told about the club’s potential, about the qualities of the players, about the magnificent work the club was doing to keep all the good players that the majority of the big clubs in Europe would be looking for. ‘I really like this squad. I’m not going to say names, I’m not going to tell you individuals because this is completely against my concept of what a team has to be, but I like a lot the ability of the squad.’