Son Heung-min has stated that it was "so sad" Jose Mourinho didn't leave Tottenham after tasting success with the club.
Looking in a really good position at the start of the year to push on and challenge towards the top of the Premier League and also go far in Europe, the 58-year-old ultimately paid the price following a disastrous run of form that saw them tumble down the table and also crash out of the Europa League.
Appointed in place of Mauricio Pochettino in November 2019 as Daniel Levy opted for a manager with experience of winning the game's biggest prizes, Mourinho did manage to lead Spurs to one final but he was then dismissed six days before the Carabao Cup showdown against Man City.
Impressing in the first few months of the 2020/21 season as they blew the likes of Southampton, Manchester United and Maccabi Haifa away, Son was integral to the head coach's plans as he scored and assisted for fun alongside Harry Kane.
However, they would only have 17 months working together and that left the Tottenham ace feeling sad as Mourinho couldn't keep up his record of winning trophies at every club he's managed during his time north London.
“It’s always sad if someone loses the day job,” he told TV3 Sport (via TEAMtalk). “Having worked with him for 17 or 18 months, it’s been up and down, it’s been good and sometimes we’ve been not so good.
“I think for me and my memory he will still be one of the best managers in the world.
“It’s just so sad that he didn’t go with success. It was really sad because he is the guy that wins everything.
“It was the only team that he wasn’t successful, so I feel really sorry about this kind of thing.”
Linked with Julian Nagelsmann and Brendan Rodgers immediately after Mourinho's exit, Levy and the club are going to have to look elsewhere with the former heading to Bayern Munich and the latter keen on remaining with Leicester City.
Scott Parker, Nuno Espirito Santo, Ralf Rangnick, Erik ten Hag and Graham Potter all rank highly with the bookmakers in the race to become the next Spurs boss.
