Reports of why Mourinho snubbed Arsenal contradicted by Mourinho himself.
Jose Mourinho was named the new manager of Tottenham yesterday less than 24 hours after they sacked Mauricio Pochettino.
Poch led them to the Champions League final earlier in the year and the Argentinian remains one of the most highly regarded managers in the game.
Mourinho has been out of a job since the end of last year when Manchester United fired him. He has been working as a pundit for much of that time, but he was surprisingly named Spurs boss this week.
Express Sports, however, claims that Mourinho could have been the manager that replaced Unai Emery at Arsenal instead, but the Portuguese boss didn’t fancy the structure at Arsenal apparently.
The Express further claims that Mourinho wants to work with more freedom and would have wanted a club that would give him money to spend in the next transfer window.
Arsenal has already spent more than £100million in the last transfer window and would not be making a splurge in the next transfer window.
So, that is the claim being spread today.
Now, let’s read what Mourinho at his first Spurs press conference today said when asked about transfers.
Question: Have you already got a Christmas list for the next transfer market?
Mourinho: Christmas list?
Question: For players, transfer market…
Mourinho: I am thinking about gifts I have to give to people I love and that is a problem because I always want to give the best gifts. I am always very analytical.
Players, the best gift, are the ones who are here. I don’t need players. I am so happy with the players I have. I just need time to understand them better and get to know them. I always say you only know a player when you work with them. You never know them well enough until you work with them.
So, unless he is a liar, which I suppose is always possible, he makes it clear that he does not need players.
That to me tells me that he has not gone in demanding a huge budget or been promised one.
It also tells me that if he was offered the Arsenal job and there is absolutely no evidence of that then why would the inability to spend huge sums be an issue.
I simply do not believe that Mourinho did not want to join Arsenal because of the structure or anything like that.
Just my opinion of course.