Tottenham finally resemble the true essence of Jose Mourinho by showcasing ‘mentality’ in Wolves win

Spurs finally resemble the true essence of Jose Mourinho with Wolves win

Jose Mourinho was delighted by the team ethics displayed by Spurs (EPA)

If the memory of his late father made Jose Mourinho appear a little wistful, perhaps a backs-against-the-wall effort would always allow him to sound sentimental. Mourinho has always been the managerial Galactico who revels in the gritty, the superstar who sees more glory in tenacity than virtuosity. He is a man who has defined himself by winning and Tottenham won at Wolves. They were outshot, out-passed; at times even outclassed. But they won.

“It is one of these victories where quality is not enough,” said Mourinho after Wolves displayed more quality. “If you are not a real team in the real sense of what the sense of what the word ‘team’ means it is impossible.” He could savour a triumph of teamwork, a sense the collective found a way to prevail. It entailed a Christian Eriksen corner and a Jan Vertonghen header, but it was something more than that.

A side with a solitary away league win since January overcame one on its longest undefeated streak in the top flight since the year before Mourinho was born. For the Portuguese, it felt proof that in the space of a few weeks he has instilled an attitude that can compensate for any individual deficiencies. “The winning team starts with the mentality,” he reflected. “The tactical side is important. The quality of the players is also important but the concept of the team is the base for a team that is capable of winning.”

Perhaps, in doughty, battle-hardened characters such as Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld, eager runners like Dele Alli, Heung-Min Son and Lucas Moura and a World Cup Golden Boot winner, in Harry Kane, who was happy to appear in the left-back position to hack down Adama Traore, Mourinho was fortunate enough to inherit men with the kind of commitment to the team ethics he values most. A manager who has struggled with a younger generation of players may benefit from some whose approach harks back to an earlier era.

But the winning mentality was married with an underdog mentality. Mourinho gushed about Wolves in a way their performance merited but which was also instructive. Diogo Jota and Traore were “trains; I don’t even want to speak about them because I get tired. The two Portuguese players in midfield are top players.” In his compatriots Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho, Wolves possess twin playmakers; Spurs, with Eric Dier’s limitations again all too apparent, fielded none until Eriksen’s late introduction. But Tottenham had flying wingers of their own, in the scorer Moura and the in-form Son.

Yet it was Tottenham who were configured to stop Wolves. Alli was withdrawn from his recent role as a No. 10 to police Neves. Moussa Sissoko was on sentry duty on Moutinho. Anyone and everyone was roped in to help Vertonghen with Traore; the valiant veteran at least kept his composure by refusing to be panicked into doing something rash.

And a typically tall Mourinho team dealt with dead-ball situations. “I don’t have stats but they were super dominant in corners and free kicks and then we had a corner and we won the game,” he said. “Why? Because we coped so well with defensive set pieces and a couple of weeks ago we were conceding goals every game from set-pieces.”

The numbers showed Tottenham with 42 percent of possession; like his successor at Old Trafford, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Mourinho may be better when his sides have less of the ball. It is why he can seem a man out of time in an age when possession is king. Conquering Molineux, however, owed more to the physical than the technical.

Mourinho celebrates after Spurs snatched a win at Molineux (EPA)

And, perhaps appropriately, it owed much to a second-choice goalkeeper. Nuno Espirito Santo filled that role for Mourinho’s Porto. Paulo Gazzaniga may owe his place to Hugo Lloris’ extended absence but he made a brilliant save from Romain Saiss that had the Tottenham manager thinking of the advice the late Felix Mourinho gave him.

“My father played in this stadium against Wolves in Uefa Cup as a goalkeeper and he was always telling me, a goalkeeper of a top team has to be different from the others,” he said. “As a goalkeeper of a top team, you don’t have 10 saves [to make], you have one but when that one comes, the magic hand has to be there.” If Mauricio Pochettino was long saluted for being magic (you know), then Mourinho felt Gazzaniga is Spurs’ new magician.