Mourinho needs a trophy to justify Tottenham's style of play

Jose Mourinho needs a trophy to justify Tottenham’s style of play… the approach in defeat against Liverpool was typical of this season while swashbuckling Reds offered reminder of what Mauricio Pochettino built

• Liverpool outplayed Tottenham to beat Jose Mourinho’s side 3-1 away from home
• Roberto Firmino, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Sadio Mane scored for visitors
• It is just over a year and a half since Liverpool beat Spurs for Champions League 
• Spurs have been stripped down while Reds can boast great consistency  

A little over a year and a half since the Champions League final between these two times, the dissembling of Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham team is complete.

At the Tottenham Hotspur stadium on Thursday night, Liverpool’s starting line up only showed three changes from that night in Madrid and two of them – the absence of Virgil van Dijk and Fabinho – were brought about by injury.

Conversely, Tottenham have been stripped down and put back together to look completely different.

Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool have consistency of personnel in comparison to Tottenham 

Son Heung-min is one of just three players from Spurs in the Champions League final in 2019

From the moment Jose Mourinho walked through the door at Spurs in November 2019, we should probably have known what was coming. The number of players from that final who played for Tottenham on Thursday night? Just three. Goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and the forward pairing of Heung Min Son and Harry Kane.

Hubris has played its part, of course. Mourinho was never going to succeed the feted Pochettino and merely invite his predecessor’s players to continue as before. Small tweaks and minor refinements are not his way. A rebuild was always on the cards and this is what we can now observe.

Equally, this was a Spurs team that needed change, needed refreshing. What is so far still under discussion is whether Mourinho’s change of emphasis – from possession and pressing to unashamed counter attack – will ever be worth it in the end.

What we saw here was typical of the Tottenham season in terms of approach. Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp took one look at the Tottenham team and said in his pre-match interviews that Mourinho had chosen a line up to frustrate them and then break.

It almost worked inside two minutes. An exchange of passes between Son and Kane and the South Korean swept the ball past Alisson and in to the corner. VAR saved Liverpool by a fraction but the warning was there. Tottenham have done exactly that to good sides already this season. To Manchester City and to Arsenal. This Tottenham team does not have to have the ball to win a game.

Certainly there is a sturdiness about Mourinho’s Tottenham that is admirable and physically impressive.

Pochettino used to like a bit of muscle too. Where we used to see players such as Moussa Dembele – long since gone – and Moussa Sissoko – on the bench for this one – we have now have Tanguy Ndombele and Pierre Hojbjerg. Both have been revelatory this season.

Ndombele was so poor during his first season last year that Mourinho was prepared to sell him. Currently his improvement has been such that the Frenchman is Tottenham’s best player. Hojbjerg on the other hand has been consistently impressive since joining from Southampton last summer and his screaming goal at the start of the second half here was one scored by a confident player.

Mourinho’s team defends reasonably well, too. In fact only league leaders Manchester City have conceded fewer than Tottenham. But with players such as Christian Eriksson gone and Dele Alli and Harry Winks – not to mention Gareth Bale – no longer starting, the concern is that Spurs are no longer a team built to score goals.

What we witnessed here was pretty typical of Tottenham’s season. Kane and Son are among the most dangerous and exhilarating attacking duo in Europe. There has been talk recently of Liverpool’s Mo Salah attracting interest from the continent but what about Son? The Korean is now at that level.

Harry Kane suffered an ankle injury and had to come off at half-time on Thursday night

But Kane’s half-time withdrawal with yet another ankle injury will be a worry for Mourinho as well as for England manager Gareth Southgate. Tottenham do not have options they feel they can rely on. Bale has been a huge disappointment since his return from Spain while players like Lucas Moura and Steven Bergwijn exist on a rung or two further down the ladder.

Liverpool have been poor with the ball during their recent barren run but they showed signs in defeat at Manchester United on Sunday that better form may be incoming. Well here it was and the example set by Sadio Mane, Salah and Roberto Firmino was one that Tottenham could not hope to match.

What will frustrate some Tottenham supporters and worry others is that their team used to do a little of what Liverpool do so well. Their full-backs used to fly. They used to press the ball front to back. They used to wear teams down.

A Mourinho team will never do that and here the gap between these two sides was significant. Tottenham were only given a lifeline by the sheer shock of Hojbjerg’s strike. It was the only way they were going to score once that the Son-Kane partnership had been fractured down the middle by injury.

Tottenham are in the Carabao Cup final and that may sustain them for a while. For if they are going to play this way they are going to have to win something to make it feel right.

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