Mourinho ‘to lead Spurs up the table’
JOSE Mourinho has vowed to lead Tottenham up the Premier League table after becoming their new head coach.
The 56-year-old has been named as Mauricio Pochettino’s successor, signing a three-and-ahalf-year deal at the north London club.
He met his new squad following his hasty appointment yesterday, which was announced less than 12 hours after Pochettino was fired, and then took training ahead of his first game in charge at West Ham on Saturday.
The Portuguese, who has been out of work since losing his job at Manchester United last December, inherits a squad that are languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League, having taken 14 points from their 12 games.
They are 11 points off the top four and while Mourinho stopped short of saying Spurs could bridge that gap, he promised they would be in a better position once he gets going.
“In relation to the Premier League I think we know where we are and we know that we don’t belong there,” he told Spurs TV.
“We should just play match after match. The next match we want to win and that is the same for the next and the next and the next until the last.
“At the end of the season we will see where we are but I know that we are going to be in a different position than we are now.
“I look forward to the challenge and the responsibility to bring happiness to everyone that loves the club.”
Mourinho moved quickly to appoint his backroom staff, with Joao Sacramento and Nuno Santos joining from Lille as assistant manager and goalkeeping coach, respectively.
Tottenham also confirmed the arrival of Carlos
Lalin as fitness coach, Ricardo Formosinho as tactical analyst and Giovanni
Cerra as technical analyst.
IT IS the £115m question creeping up on Newcastle United – a contract number-cruncher that will define the future direction of the club.
For all that January is an important transfer window for Lee Charnley, the biggest decisions the club must make are on how many of the 20 players whose deals are entering their final 18 months they will keep.
Newcastle have eight players at the end of their contracts this summer – arguably three they’ll want to either keep or sell next in January to prevent a significant loss of transfer revenue – and then a further 12 in the close season of 2021, which is a potentially transformative period for the Magpies.
While Jack Colback – exiled from the Premier League squad – now seems certain to end on the freeagent market, the 2020 crop also includes Federico Fernandez, Andy Carroll, Ki and Matty Longstaff. All big players or potential future stars.
And the 2021 group includes a collective who have been absolutely critical for the club in recent seasons: DeAndre Yedlin, Isaac Hayden, Matt Ritchie, Jonjo Shelvey, Dwight Gayle, Ciaran Clark and arguably the club’s most valuable defender, Fabian Schar.
Although it looks like they have 19 months to decide on that crop,