Spurs are the lockdown’s big winners – they can make Champions League
Afew months ago, Jose Mourinho was realistic in his assessment of Tottenham Hotspur’s chances of Champions League qualification. As far back as December, he seemed to have an eye on next season as much as the remainder of this one. “It is very difficult to recover a distance of 12 points,” he said of the gap to the top four.
“Now we are minus three, but the problem is that during the recovery process you are not going to win all the time, and the other guys are not going to lose all the time. When we start next season with the same number of points, it is a different story.”
Mourinho was not conceding defeat, but was tempering expectations. By the time Harry Kane was injured and Son Heung-min broke an arm, most Spurs fans recognised their best hope of playing in next year’s Champions League was Manchester City’s Uefa ban. If upheld, that will mean finishing fifth is enough. Nobody at the club will want to admit it, but the suspension of the Premier League – and I mean this solely from a sporting perspective – arrived at an opportune moment for Spurs and Mourinho.
Spurs were in terrible form at the time, eliminated from the FA Cup by Norwich and outclassed in the Champions League by RB Leipzig. Mourinho had good reason to start looking to the future. Whenever a manager takes over a club mid-season, they try to impose their ideas and system during a hectic period, even more so with European commitments denying time on the training ground.
They will concentrate on the immediate challenge of the next game while longing for the next pre-season, when they have more opportunities to condition their squad and fine-tune players. The three-month break has effectively given Mourinho the pre-season he craved. He is not able to sign players, but he is welcoming key ones back.
The presence of Kane and Son means Spurs will be a different side in June from what they would have been in April. Although lots of the focus will be on the availability of the England captain, it is Spurs’ ability to use Son which is the game-changer for Mourinho. What Spurs really lacked before lockdown was someone with the pace to worry defenders. Son’s presence brings that.
One of the first Premier League games after the restart is among the most critical in the race for Champions League positions. Spurs meet Manchester United. If Tottenham win, United will be looking over their shoulder with greater apprehension. The suspension of football came as United were building momentum, in the midst of the most consistent spell of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s reign after the signing of Bruno Fernandes. While Mourinho will not mind pausing and starting again, for Solskjaer the opposite is true.
As well as United, Spurs play top-four rivals Sheffield United and Arsenal, who, despite being ninth, are only five points behind fifth. It is the closest race for Champions League places in years, complicated by the fact the final position will be determined by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
I can tell in the shift in tone from Mourinho’s most recent interviews, he knows Spurs’ chances are enhanced by the combination of City’s legal fight and the temporary pause in fixtures. Contrast his remarks before the lockdown to those on May 14. “I want to train and I am desperate for the Premier League to return as soon as it is safe to do so, particularly now we are seeing other leagues preparing to return to action,” he said.
We saw that for ourselves when Mourinho was photographed in a London park working with Tanguy Ndombele. Davinson Sanchez and Ryan Sessegnon were pictured training at the same venue, Hadley Common in Barnet. Pushing the boundaries in this manner tells me how eager the head coach is for his players to hit the ground running. Mourinho will relish ramping up pressure on United in the press conferences, knowing there is more expectation that they, not Spurs, will take the final Champions League place. Three months ago, Spurs looked like a club needing to start afresh. Mourinho thought he was going to reassemble his players this summer with 38 games to lead the club back into Europe’s premier competition. Now he must believe he can still do it in the next nine.