DANIEL LEVY should find no trouble handling Jose Mourinho — after all he has had plenty of practice.
The Tottenham chairman may never have managed Jose before but previous Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino spent the last 18 months trying to act like the man who has replaced him.
Pochettino has never made a secret of his admiration for The Special OneCredit: AP:Associated Press
Poch, axed on Tuesday, had always hailed the Portuguese as an idol.
It seemed the more famous the Argie got at Tottenham the more he tried to emulate Mourinho’s dark arts.
From outlandish statements, bizarre behaviour and trying to manipulate the media — to blaming everyone else for every wrongdoing while continually contradicting himself and somehow contriving to turn the agenda on himself.
Now Levy has swapped Mini-Mo for the real deal that he hopes will deliver at Spurs with more style — and more silverware.
It is unfortunate for Pochettino because he certainly did not arrive at Tottenham with the ego he left with. In fact, when desperate Levy snapped him up from Southampton in May 2014 he was a virtual unknown who could not even speak English.
I was in the south of France covering Gareth Southgate’s England Under-21s at the prestigious Toulon Tournament, when the news of the appointment began to surface.
Southgate invited another reporter and myself to stay with his squad and as the rumours of Poch quitting St Mary’s for Spurs increased.
Saints starlet James Ward-Prowse, whose room was just a few doors down from mine, used to badger me for updates.
The tears in eyes when I informed him his gaffer had left indicated Pochettino was something special — I foolishly chose not to acknowledge it.
I wrote a damning piece condemning the appointment, claiming I remembered the days Spurs used to appoint internationally recognised managers, not some Argie we had never heard of.
I sneered it summed up how far one of England’s great clubs had fallen by insisting the sum of their ambitions was to now be Southampton.
I felt quite proud of myself as I was the only Brit newspaper journalist to jet off to Seattle for the first stage of Tottenham’s tour of the US.
After arriving at the Seattle Seahawks stadium for the first friendly, I covered the first ever press conference Pochettino conducted in English without the aid of an interpreter, who had earned him such ridicule at Southampton.
When it was finished Tottenham’s press guru Simon Felstein introduced me to the new manager who reminded me of my damning article against him. #awks.
He told me: “I will prove you and everyone else wrong.”
Then as I left to watch his first open training session from the press deck, Pochettino grabbed me and told me if I was going to criticise him I should at least see at close quarters how he worked.
So I spent the next hour on the touchline in the searing sun (no place for a ginger) as he put his players through their paces.
Jose Mourinho was today unveiled as the new Tottenham Hotspur managerCredit: Getty – Contributor
It was then I started to think I’d been hasty in condemning him.
It is important to remember, though, Poch was not an instant success at Tottenham.
After winning his first four matches he then failed to win any of the next four and his Spurs side were losing 1-0 at home to Nottingham Forest in a Carabao Cup tie when he started being jeered by his own fans.
Poch then sent on Ryan Mason, who levelled with a stunner before the hosts went on to win 3-1.
The new manager was making his mark all over the North London club, as he persuaded all of their stars and staff, to follow his personable lead by greeting every colleague in the morning with a handshake and “good morning”.
It was clearly having the desired effect on the pitch too as Tottenham finished fifth that first season, followed by third, second, third and fourth.
But Pochettino’s family never forgot his tough start and Mason’s salvo – it is the reason the midfielder was Poch family’s fave player before he later left for Hull.
The Argie was accused of getting a soft ride from the media, but that is because he always provided good copy at his weekly pre-match Press conferences at their Hotspur Way training ground.
But it was on pre-season trips when he really took reporters into his confidence.
I was fortunate enough to be in the Melbourne hotel when his honest off-the-record reaction to his team being pipped by Leicester for the 2016 Premier League title caused most of the fellow diners to spill their prawn cocktails.
He then gave us an insight into his methodical coaching methods.
Did you know he has recorded every single one of the training sessions he has ever taken and still keeps them all on memory sticks in a fleet of briefcases?
But as Pochettino’s reputation and status in the game started to grow so did his ego.
And in the last year-and-a-half of his tenure at Tottenham his dealings with the media became as bizarre as box-office.
His stories about cows by railway lines led us to believe he was starting to go off the rails.
His sacking was inevitable, only the timing was a surprise.
Jose Mourinho gives first interview as head coach at Tottenham
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
