PREMIER LEAGUE YOU WERE THE FUTURE ONCE!
IT WAS probably former Prime Minister David Cameron’s finest hour. As fresh- faced opposition leader, taking on Tony Blair for the first time, he goaded him with an inspirational line. ‘You were the future once!’ the young buck told the old hand.
Mourinho, 56, and Klopp, 52, don’t quite play the same roles in life experience. Yet the line fits in terms of career trajectories.
When Mourinho was blazing a trail across Europe, winning Champions League finals, Klopp was finishing third in the second tier of the Bundesliga with a club that was a something of a joke in their own city.
Yet there’s no doubting who wears the crown now. It doesn’t take a coach of the year award to identify the world’s most charismatic and admired manager. Even Pep Guardiola has had to take a step back to allow Europe’s most feted football leader enjoy the limelight.
Mourinho was that future once. He believes he still might be. That’s why he’s here at Tottenham and not in Qatar or China. His entrance six weeks ago was breezy and his effect immediate. Now they’re on the other side of that curve, back to where they were. Back to reality, as one eminent north Londoner of these parts once put it.
No Harry Kane is staple of the mid-winter campaign for a Spurs manager, as is the realisation that you will never be kings of the transfer window. It’s a much better place to be than Old Trafford at present. Yet it’s not Real Madrid. Nor is it Chelsea in those early free-spending days.
You suspect, deep down, he relished this challenge against Klopp. At heart, the man who cavorted down the Old Trafford touchline as Porto manager 16 years ago loves to characterise himself as the underdog.
Perhaps that was the reason for giving 20-year-old Japhet Tanganga his Premier League debut. For one thing, it helps counter the accusation that he has no interest in the emerging generation. This is Jose 2.0. Yet it also feeds his chosen narrative. Mourinho loves this schtick: down to the bare bones, us
against the world. One of his finest moment came unpicking Guardiola’s great Barcelona side with Inter in 2010.
Mourinho’s format against the great sides has been broadly the same ever since: the obsession with shape, preferably with an extra defender, quick, lethal strikers (though he of course lacked Kane on this occasion) and the early ball over the top to disrupt. He has a particular fondness for a diagonal long ball. It is a game plan that has served him well. You can tell when Tottenham move even a degree out of shape. That is when their boss is at his most animated, half crouching, applauding manically and cajoling his players back into line.
Other times Liverpool would be enjoying possession, Tottenham appeared under threat, but Mourinho was quite comfortable, hands in pocket, strolling as if on a Saturday evening promenade. The message was clear: gegenpress all you like; you’re not getting through that. Still there is only so much you can do against this extraordinary challenge.
Pity Tanganga. I f you were picking a Premier League debut, you might not ask for one against Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino. Add in being asked to play both as a back three (when Spurs were out of possession) and then cover for Serge Aurier, who had licence to play right midfield as he saw fit, and later to fit in at left back. There are easier debuts.
Initially Tanganga barely missed a beat. A goal-line clearance settled the nerves. A robust dispossession of Mane and a confident stride up the pitch led to the African player of the year upending him. Yet for all his early promise this was a test that would challenge a senior pro.
Firmino is a player who lives for feints in tight spaces. Quick feet and a dropped shoulder is the genre he inhabits better than almost anyone. So it was unfortunate that it was Tanganga who fell victim.
A throw in was deflected by Henderson to Sal ah inside a penalty area so crowded it could have been the post-match queue for Seven Sisters station. A dinked pass to the Brazilian was all it took. Firm in ore ad it right while Tanganga misjudged it marginally. It was enough.
Firmino, allowing the ball to run across his body and thus fool the debutant, had bought himself the yard of space he needed to score.
The Mourinho plan works until you concede. Then there needs to be a better one. To be fair there was. Stuttering in the second half, changes on 69 minutes brought fresh verve. Spurs played a back four with Erik Lamela and Giovani Lo Celso asked to attack and they seized the initiative.
There was a key moment on 75 minutes when Moura played in Son. Space opened up and Son had a glorious chance but lifted his shot over. Mourinho turned away. That’s probably what he had in mind when he said losing Kane meant he didn’t have a centre forward.
Then there was the Lo Celso moment when Aurier crossed on 83 minutes and the Argentine slid in, clear of the back four, stuck out a leg and from three yards out could only direct the ball wide.
The stadium roared and then sighed. Mourinho sunk to his knees, then the grimace became an impish grin. He may never catch Klopp again. But he isn’t quite done yet.