Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
PAINTING OVER THE CRACKS
The Dulux jokes went viral and summed up the turmoil at Jose’s Tottenham who have badly underachieved and can’t hold on to a lead... maybe that’s how the dog got on the pitch
JOSE MOURINHO may have tried to gloss over things – but Tottenham are very much a club in turmoil right now.
It would take more than a tin of brilliant white trade diamond eggshell – or the Special One’s determinedly blank expression – to cover up the fact there are some worrying structural cracks in the whole Spurs project.
The jokes about the empty trophy cabinet – Tottenham have not lifted silverware since they won the League Cup in 2008 – could be answered as soon as next weekend if they beat Manchester City in the final of the same competition.
First, though, is a Premier League trip to Goodison tonight, which could end any faint hopes of achieving what is actually the top objective handed down to Mourinho by chairman Daniel Levy.
Not silverware – but qualifying for the Champions League.
If they fail, Spurs will only have themselves to blame. After allowing Manchester United to come from behind to win 3-1 last week, it is now 18 points that Tottenham have surrendered from winning positions this term. About the only joke not doing the rounds after the Dulux “official paint supplier” announcement was that the sole reason there was an Old English Sheepdog bounding around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was because once again Spurs had let go of a lead.
Mourinho claims he knows the reasons, but was keeping tight-lipped nevertheless, during his pantomime of a press conference yesterday.
“I know why it happened and I know also you can look at it in a different perspective,” he said.
“A team that starts matches well, and starts winning matches, means something positive that you like to forget, the positive aspect of that.
“But I agree with you, in the sense of when you are in winning positions and you lose points, there is also a negative thing to it.
“That’s what I’m not ready to discuss with you. I think it has to do with some of our qualities as a team, but I’m not ready to discuss with you. Maybe never.”
He was also not ready to discuss the whole Dulux thing either. It is inconceivable that a man who last week was able to question Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s comments about Heung-min Son, moments after he said them on camera, was really not aware of the backdrop to his press conference.
If anything, his innocent “What’s Dulux?” intervention was as convincing as his acting in any of those Paddy Power commercials.
Last week the Spurs boss wanted to talk about Son’s paternal upbringing rather than the football – hijacking the post-match press conference to do so.
Now he wanted to talk purely football rather than discuss a few home truths.
Perhaps it is time he got his players to do the talking instead of himself. Where it matters, on the pitch.