Jose Mourinho has not been at Tottenham long but the team is already taking on some of his traits. It feels a lot like his last Chelsea side.
It was not all that surprising to see Mauricio Pochettino leave Tottenham but it was surprising to see him leave midseason. That decision became clearer when Jose Mourinho joined the club, something that felt impossible just a few days earlier.
He has not been at the team long but they are already showing some very Mourinho like traits, particularly offensively. The defense is still quite rocky, but otherwise it feels a lot like Mourinho’s last Chelsea team. Particularly the first part of 2014-2015.
For Frank Lampard, this will be a battle of trying to out think Mourinho. The Portuguese manager is known to change things up entirely for big matches and the last time Lampard faced his former coach, it was hard to call the game “big”. But that just goes to show how much things can change in the game over just a year.
Overall, Mourinho has stuck to the 4-2-3-1 that Tottenham long succeeded under and that the manager himself has found most of his success in recent years. Two hardworking center backs and holding midfielders are surrounding by wide players that conflict with one another stylistically on either flank. Centrally is a hardworking 10 that roams around behind a striker waiting for service.
Offensively is where they look most like Mourinho’s last Chelsea side. As one fullback advances and provides width, the opposite fullback remains deep. One winger will stay wide and cut in if they get the ball while the other stays tucked in on the same flank as the bombarding fullback. The shape becomes something like a 3-2-4-1 or a 3-3-3-1 depending on just how far that fullback pushes up.
The main difference is where the direct ball is coming from. At Chelsea, it was Cesc Fabregas picking his passes out of the pivot. At Spurs, it is more often the center backs doing so. This has led the build up to come more from the back than in midfield as would be normal for a Mourinho side. The front four are all allowed a great deal of freedom in movement, even the wingers who play very differently than one another.
Defensively they drop into a 4-4-2 with the wingers asked to come back and join the banks. They shield themselves relatively well against counters because of the pivot and a fullback remaining deep. Tottenham has not moved on from their issues at the back that Pochettino faced, but they are scoring more to compensate under Mourinho.
Their biggest strength is their adaptability. If Mourinho does not like something, he changes it. That will require constant adjustments on the Chelsea side to cope with the changes. While Lampard has thus far been an observer on the side line this season (preferring to trust the work on the training ground or in the dressing room), this game may require a more active approach.
Tottenham’s biggest weakness is how early it is into the Mourinho tenure and how they still carry a bit of the baggage from earlier in the season. The defense is vulnerable and there to be exploited. Unless Mourinho goes to his old plan B against top clubs (4-3-3), then Chelsea will have the space to attack.
Mourinho had a fair few criticisms for Chelsea before he took the Tottenham job. Even then, he surely gamed out ideas as to how he would counter Lampard’s Chelsea. A Chelsea win would go a long ways towards silencing both the critics and the former manager but it would require a hard fought battle on the Blues’ part. Lampard needs to pull out all his cleverness for this one.