Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho proved he is evolving as a manager in win over Man City

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James Olley3 February 2020

These are the moments Jose Mourinho and Tottenham signed up for. Whatever the unease at the Portuguese’s appointment among some fans, he proved he still has the touch for the big occasion.

This was no Mourinho masterclass. City were dominant pretty much up until Oleksandr Zinchenko was sent off for a second yellow card after body-checking Harry Winks. Only the visitors’ excessive elaboration in front of goal — and perhaps the forlorn status of their Premier League title defence — prevented them putting this game to bed long before Spurs established themselves as a force within it.

City were not stifled or strangled, as the best Mourinho teams often managed, but, my, how Spurs’s manager enjoyed this. The grin at full-time said it all. Here was the first landmark victory of his tenure in north London, secured with a ruthless execution of their numerical advantage as debutant Steven Bergwijn and Heung-min Son forced his old adversary Pep Guardiola to concede the League title to Liverpool with February barely two days old.

Mourinho is supposed to have been left behind by the managerial zeitgeist spearheaded by Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp. The longer-term challenge, of course, is to build a side capable of surpassing Guardiola and the rest over a longer period, despite the financial mismatch. But when Mourinho arrived, he spoke of “progressively arriving to a fingerprint” in terms of style of play and here there were clear signs of moving on from the Mauricio Pochettino era.

New signings will inevitably help and Bergwijn’s debut was hugely encouraging. But this was a world away from, for example, Spurs’s last 2-0 win over City, in October 2016, when the Pochettino press overwhelmed into submission a City side yet to peak under Guardiola.

There were similarities to August’s 2-2 draw in that City should have been out of sight early on. Ilkay Gundogan was the chief culprit on Sunday, missing from the penalty spot after a VAR review for Serge Aurier’s tackle on Sergio Aguero.

But it is an indication of Mourinho’s evolution that he did not pack his team with physicality, as is usually his wont, or indeed as Pochettino did to some extent at the Etihad. Instead, Winks and Giovani Lo Celso formed a shield Mourinho would have once considered too lightweight for an occasion such as this.

Both Harry Kane’s absence and Tottenham’s failure to land a striker in the January transfer window forced his hand to some extent, but Mourinho opting to play Moura as a lone forward felt like an innovation, too.

Moura and Son wreaked havoc on City in last season’s Champions League quarter-final and, although that didn’t happen with anywhere near the same consistency here, both played key roles in swinging the game Tottenham’s way.

Moura’s angled pass found Bergwijn in the box three minutes after Zinchenko’s departure and the Dutchman chested the ball down brilliantly before volleying past Ederson. Son then fired home a second eight minutes later.

Mourinho revelled in the ruthlessness, especially at the end of a game in which he felt Spurs were on the receiving end of incorrect VAR interventions as Raheem Sterling fouled Dele Alli before later falling under minimal contact from Hugo Lloris moments after he saved Gundogan’s spot-kick.

Dismissed: The game turned on Zinchenko's dismissal in the second half Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

A clip of Mourinho being reminded Sterling was already on a yellow card, prompting him to charge at the fourth official, quickly went viral. It was precisely the sort of reaction that once would have enraged Spurs fans watching him in opposition. And if they are to fully embrace Mourinho and his methods, Spurs need to build on occasions like this, while the man himself finds a progressive path. Fourth place coming into view should sharpen minds in that regard.

However much Mourinho claims he has changed, the 57-year-old could not resist a jibe at VAR, even when the question was whether these were the occasions he missed the most during last year’s hiatus from management.

“No, I love football,” he said. “I thought I was going to love VAR, that was my initial feeling. I love the truth. The VAR has too many mistakes. That doesn’t take away my pleasure, though.”

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