Mischievous Jose Mourinho will relish chance to stop Liverpool – again – as the man with the one-game plan

Mourinho’s relationship with Jurgen Klopp – and to a much larger extent Liverpool – is as poor as it ever was, which will only fuel the Spurs boss to come up with another defensive master plan

Jose Mourinho will prepare his Spurs side to try and stop Liverpool (PA)

It was a vintage piece of Jose Mourinho mischief, if maybe an insight into something else, too.

Way back in the summer of 2016, the Portuguese was doing a sponsorship event, that had a natural twist. Mourinho had just taken over as manager of Manchester United, along with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, Antonio Conte at Chelsea and Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool. The presenter was thereby going to introduce the show by listing all of these names and waxing about the league with the greatest managers in the world but purposely leave out Mourinho’s ... at which point he would appear for the crowd to go wild.

“So we’ve got all these great managers,” the presenter explained to Mourinho beforehand. “You, Wenger, Pep, Klopp…”

Mourinho immediately interrupted him. “Except Klopp.”

It should be noted that Mourinho knew the presenter was a Liverpool fan so was winding him up, but it was quite a job.

“He isn’t great. He hasn’t won anything.”

“But he’s so successful,” came the puzzled response.

“Well, if you count getting to finals and coming second successful, then he’s successful.”

The presenter pointed to his Bundesliga titles with Borussia Dortmund.

“It's a two-team league. Bayern were s*** those years. It’s easy.”

It’s not such an easy wind-up now, however.

It's not quite so much Klopp hasn't won anything, but might well win everything.

He's certainly winning almost every game, having finally lifted the Champions League at the end of last season. If the runaway league leaders claim another victory at Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, it will be 20 out of 21 and another record.

It is just another reason why Mourinho is winding himself up ahead of this game, if in the right way.

So many elements of this match will irk and get a reaction out of him. While he was obviously hamming it up for the presenter that day in 2016, it’s similarly fair to say that Mourinho hasn’t had the best relationship with Klopp.

There have been words about the German’s famously energetic touchline demeanour, and Mourinho took particular relish from his victory over Liverpool with United in 2017-18, at a time when he was sick of so much praise for Klopp.

To add to that, there’s Mourinho’s curious relationship with Liverpool the club. He’s certainly relished victories over them in the past, even more so when ending a run, as he did on that famous day in 2014.

Many put that down to the fact Liverpool were Mourinho’s English club as a child, and that he always wanted to manage them, but was spurned twice.

Beyond anything else, though, Mourinho despises the idea of someone else’s roadkill. He despises being a mere statistic in someone else’s magnificence, to just be dismissed.

Mourinho's relationship with Klopp has never been a strong one (Getty)

He despises – to re-use a phrase from that day in 2014 – to be “the clown in the circus”. Little would appeal more to Mourinho’s ego than to be the manager who ends Liverpool’s prospects of an invincible season, who ends that winning run, who punctures all that praise around Klopp. And all for his personal glory. Mourinho has always been a man who especially takes pride in records he himself has broken. But there's more.

It is an attitude that reminds of Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous comment to Hugh McIlvanney, when the late great journalist put to him in 2003-04 that an unbeatable Arsenal were so impressive. “Not against Manchester United,” Ferguson growled.

The Portuguese doesn’t growl in that way, but there can be a grizzled spikiness. It is why, whatever about vintage Mourinho mischief this weekend, we may well see vintage Mourinho defiance.

We might well see this Spurs side finally put in a defensive performance worthy of the description, if also because of a properly dug-in display for the first time.

This is what Mourinho really lives for as regards management. He loves forensically analysing a big rival for a big match – preferably a side that have been praised or seen as superior to his – and figuring out where they can be got at; where a trap can be laid; where everyone can be proven wrong.

This is where he tends to come up with something different, at least from a defensive standpoint. And figuring out how to negate the influence of Liverpool’s wing-backs, and force all play into the centre, would certainly be different. No one has managed it yet. It would be another element of the game that appeals to Mourinho’s sense of pride.

One significant problem is that Spurs have been so bad defensively, having not yet kept a clean sheet under Mourinho. That is an even more daunting fact when you’re playing a side as free-scoring as Liverpool.

Some close to Mourinho would say part of that is because he has tried a more adventurous approach at Spurs, in-keeping with an ongoing attempt to update his managerial philosophy. There’s also the issue that he doesn’t fully trust this defence. Sources maintain he wants to upgrade all his starting backline except Toby Alderweireld.

But then he’s been in such situations before, not least on that afternoon in 2014, or at Anfield with United in October 2016. He didn’t have the defences he wanted. He still got the responses because of the rigour of his preparations for individual games, and clean sheets.

No one will forget how Mourinho ended Liverpool's hopes in 2014 (Sky Sports)

It is why we are likely to see a Mourinho speciality this Saturday, even if that amounts to a spoiling game. He will undeniably have something up his sleeve. Sources say he has been considering 20-year-old Japhet Tanganga as part of a three-man centre-back line, amid a few possible defensive options. Many might scoff, but remember Tomas Kalas in that 2014 game? And he stepped up. The Portuguese sees such moves as the sort that can jolt games, and thereby distort them.

This would thereby be a vintage Mourinho move for a game like this, seeking to congest all play in the centre, to block off all the lines.

It’s why, in contrast to everyone in football right now, he might actually relish playing Liverpool.