Listless, flat & uninspired...a top-four finish looks well out of Jose’s league
THERE is a suggestion Jose Mourinho has a clause in his contract that will give him a £2million bonus if he takes Tottenham into next season’s Champions League.
Well, it is a good job Jose is already not short of a few quid because that is one jackpot he will not be hitting.
Not on the evidence scattered around Vicarage
Road, that is for sure.
They may have come within a millimetre of winning this but they look a country mile from top-four contention.
Largely listless, flat and uninspired, in many ways this was – for a Tottenham fan – a more dispiriting performance than the one posted in defeat against
Liverpool.
After that game, Mourinho had to field some familiar flak last weekend for the performance of his possession-shy team.
Sharing a stage with
Jurgen Klopp shone the light of yesteryear on
Mourinho, his tactics came from Dele, when he hooked a ball over his own head, cruised 20 yards and delivered a perfect pass for
Lucas Moura. You can probably guess the rest.
But the next time Dele was doing anything flamboyant, it was punching a seat in the dugout after being hooked for Eriksen.
Presumably, Jose thought it was Dele’s kid brother out there.
The player’s petulant reaction will not unduly bother Mourinho but the improvement he needs to find in this team most certainly will.
Continuing their revival under Nigel Pearson, Watford were decent and would probably have gone on to take the win had Troy Deeney not allowed Paulo Gazzaniga to save his second-half penalty.
Then again, Spurs would have claimed an unlikely victory had Ignacio Pussetto not cleared a scruffy Erik Lamela effort off the line in the dying moments.
All in all, equality was just about right.
For Watford, after the troubles they have had, equality with Spurs is fine.
For Mourinho and ambitious Tottenham, equality with
Watford is not.