The Jose Mourinho Turnaround with Tottenham Hotspur
By Aaron Coe
It will be one year and one day with Jose Mourinho in charge of Tottenham Hotspur when Spurs host Manchester City in mid-November, so how has Jose done with Spurs.
Jose Mourinho was hired to take over Tottenham Hotspur on October 20, 2019, following nearly five and half years of the Mauricio Pochettino era at N17. While the overall record for Pochettino is good compared to Mourinho’s overall record with Tottenham, the period since Project Restart in June of 2020, has shown us a real Jose Mourinho team.
Overall Tottenham Records – A Dead Heat
The reality is that Mauricio Pochettino had a rough start to his reign with Tottenham Hotspur and a tough end, but a lot of good football in-between for Spurs. Pochettino was in charge from May 27, 2014 until November 19, 2020 a span of some 2002 days, and 293 matches. With 160 wins in those 293 matches, Pochettino had a career win percentage of 55% at Tottenham Hotspur. That 55% is than any other Premier League era manager except Tim Sherwood whose 59.1%-win percentage is slightly skewed by an exceedingly small sample size of just 13 matches.
Besides winning more than half their matches under Pochettino, Spurs drew a further 20%, meaning there was a 75% chance Spurs were taking points under Pochettino, averaging 1.84 points per match over those 5+ seasons. Tottenham scored well at 1.91 goals per game and defended strongly giving up 1.10 goals against on average.
When looking at these number compared to Jose Mourinho’s OVERALL Tottenham record across 50 games, Pochettino looks strong. Across 50 total games with Spurs, Mourinho has won 27 matches, which is a 54%-win rate. With 10 draws, Mourinho has the same 20% draw rate as Pochettino, meaning that statistically over their full terms as Tottenham manager, Pochettino wins slightly more.
Mourinho’s teams have been scoring at a higher rate than Pochettino’s with 2.02 goals per match – second in Mourinho’s career only to his Real Madrid stop. However, the defense – a typical Mourinho specialty – has been more porous allowing an average of 1.36 goals against per match. This means Spurs had a better average goal difference under Pochettino than they have under Mourinho, but only slightly by .15 goals per match.
Ultimately, when comparing the full tenure of each, Pochettino earned 1.84 points per match with Spurs as manager and in 50 games Mourinho has earned 1.82 points per match. Looking at those statistics one might want to argue that Spurs never should have gotten rid of Mauricio Pochettino and that Mourinho is no longer the Special One he once was. However, to come to that conclusion, you have to stop at this point, because if you dig a bit deeper into the numbers you actually see that Mourinho is having an immense impact on Tottenham Hotspur and we are only just now getting to see the fruits of that labor.