Jose Mourinho has hinted that Tottenham could be his last job in English football.
The 56-year-old begins his fourth stint at a Premier League club, following two spells at Chelsea and two-and-a-half years with Manchester United, when Spurs play at West Ham Saturday lunchtime.
Mourinho was linked with a host of jobs across Europe - admitting he remains in regular contact with senior figures at Real Madrid - before opting to replace Mauricio Pochettino, who was sacked on Tuesday after more than five years at Tottenham. When asked whether it was possible he would not manage another side in England, Mourinho said: “I’d love that to be the case. I would love to stay for many years. I say ‘many years’, but I know realistically how football is.
“If I could do a Mauricio for five-and-a-half years, it would be amazing. I would be 61 - then 10 more years. [I’d maybe manage] Vitoria Setubal in Portugal. Maybe [this is] the last job [in England], yeah.”
Spurs are languishing in 14th place in the table, continuing a dismal run of form throughout 2019 that was masked by reaching the Champions League Final in June. They took 25 points from Pochettino’s final 24 matches, losing 18 times in the calendar year, but Mourinho insists he does not plan to rip up the team to instigate an improvement.
“I don’t want to make big changes,” he said. “I want to respect the base and the base is the work they did for five-and-a-half years. It’s not the work they did for two days. The work we did for two days we hope that is a plus. We hope that is an update, not a change.
“The base is what they did before. This is not about me. This is not about me coming here and saying everything was wrong with Mauricio, not at all.
“I just come to try to understand why in the last year the results in the Premier League were not good and to understand how I can help them to reach again a good level because the players are very good and I am not here to make dramatic changes.
“I am here to follow the process and get across my ideas in a progressive way: don’t lose that stability, don’t create the confusion in their brains.”
Tanguy Ndombele (groin) and Jan Vertonghen (hamstring) will be assessed ahead of tomorrow’s game but Erik Lamela (hamstring) is out.
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