It’s fair to say a few eyebrows were raised when Jose Mourinho was named as Mauricio Pochettino’s successor as Tottenham Hotspur boss last month.
The Portuguese is well-known for his attritional management style, with his first spell at Chelsea the only time Mourinho has made it into a fourth season as manager at any club - and even then he was out before the end of September.
Many worry that after the stability Pochettino had brought during his five and a half years in north London, Spurs have taken a short-term approach in appointing Mourinho.
The former Manchester United boss is not well-known for developing young talent and does not tend to stick around anywhere for too long but Daniel Levy does not believe the latter of those is necessarily a problem.
With the way the sport has gone, Levy believes Tottenham can take a more continental approach to the hiring and firing of managers rather than focusing on outliers of a bygone era like Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.
“It is hard managing a club,” he told the Evening Standard.
“The pressure these managers are under is immense. There aren’t many managers that manage a club for five years. [The longevity of Sir] Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger is very, very, very unusual.
“When they first started, the League wasn’t where it is today. It is so competitive and intense. I think it is very unlikely you are going to see a repeat of that. The Ferguson and Wenger eras are in the past.
“We are obsessed in this country with the longevity of the so-called ‘manager’, in Europe it is normal every two years to get someone else. It isn’t personal. They don’t even sign five-year contracts. They sign for two years and then another coach comes in.
“Mauricio and Jose are great coaches. They are different, they have different styles and Mauricio took us a long way.
“He did an amazing job and I’m sure that Jose will do equally an amazing job in a different way.”
