Jose Mourinho selection errors set Tottenham up for failure

Jose Mourinho’s selection follies on Thursday evening set his side up for failure, contributing significantly to Tottenham’s 3-1 loss to Liverpool. 

In hindsight, it’s easy to find fault in a losing manager’s team selection. It’s even easier when the manager makes such rudimentary, overtly bad decisions. And it’s by no means the first time Jose has chosen the wrong personnel to go to war.

The gaffer’s selections were made more difficult taking into account the absence of Sergio Reguilón and Giovanni Lo Celso. However, he has more than enough depth at his disposal to bridge the gaps.

With the available players at his disposal, Jose should have started with a 4-2-3-1 formation. And the team should not have included Serge Aurier or Joe Rodon. One cannot fault Rodon for the inexperienced error he committed which led to Liverpool’s third goal. His manager shouldn’t have put him in that situation in the first place. Yes, Rodon enjoyed a stellar outing against Chelsea earlier in the season. But that was against a disjointed Chelsea side, not the defending league champions.

With time, Rodon will develop into a standout centre back. But he should be given the opportunity to gain experience against lesser teams. Instead he was thrown into shark-infested waters, his inexperience akin to an open, bleeding wound.

Toby Alderweireld should have started beside Eric Dier. The  Belgian international is chock-full of big-match experience, exactly the type of player you must call upon against top caliber sides. And then there’s Serge Aurier, who inexplicably got the call on the right side of midfield, just ahead of the unschooled centre back. Aurier is erratic at the best of times, so asking him to do a job against Sadio Mane is as naive as it is absurd. We all witnessed what happens when you ask a sub-standard player to perform an impossible task.

Matthew Doherty was asked to play out of position, on the left side of midfield, another perplexing decision. He should have where he belongs, at right back. And that leaves Ben Davies, who is much more proficient as a conventional left back. Which is exactly where he should have played.

Harry Winks and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg should have started in tandem in front of a conventional back four, with Tanguy Ndombele, Son Heung-Min and Steven Bergwijn comprising the three in advanced midfield roles. That leaves Harry Kane as the lone striker up front.

Seems pretty simple from where I sit. Ironically, over complicating simple decisions has become a trademark of Jose’s management style in recent years.

Play to your team’s strengths, ensure stability, tighten the midfield and counter swiftly and lethally. Those are tenets Mourinho has made a career of. So why, in the most important match of the season against the defending champions, would you leave your side so exposed and vulnerable, like an abandoned newborn?

Aurier, Rodon, Dier, Davies and Doherty all committed ghastly mistakes that led to Liverpool goals.

But looking on a macro scale, their manager put them in unfamiliar, uncomfortable positions, thereby increasing substantially the likelihood of sweeping failure. Which is exactly what transpired.