Everything ‘The Humble One’ Mourinho says on his first Spurs press conference

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Mourinho talks to the media for the first time as Tottenham manager.

Poch will always be welcome
The Spurs boss said: “He knows he gave everything and he leaves with a sad feeling but knowing that he did great work. He will always be welcome here.

“I’m not smiling because we have a game in two days and it’s not much time. But deep inside I’m really happy and every minute I spend here I realise my decision [to come here] was correct.

“It’s a great club with a great organisation and structure. I’m looking forward to coaching the players and the team and not worrying about things about me. It’s not about the structure, it’s about the dynamic of the structure.”

‘I am going to be careful’

“I told the players that one of the reasons I decided to come was therm. I tried to buy some of them for different clubs and couldn’t, some of them I didn’t even try because it was impossible. I am not just saying that now, I have said for years.

“I want to respect the base of work that they have done for five years, it is an update not a change. I am here to try and understand why the results in the last year in the Premier League were not good. I am not here to make dramatic changes and create confusion in their brains.

“I am going to be very careful.”

‘I don’t need players’
Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho: “The best gift for me. I don’t need players. I am happy with the ones I have. I just need more time with them. I know them well from playing against them, but you never know them well enough.”

‘It’s about stability’

“The difficulty of the job? Every time that a club changes mid-season it is because the situation is not good. It is not easy. But the potential of the club is great and the potential of the players is huge, I am so so happy.

“I potentially have a great job in my hands. I have to be balanced. I cannot change things in four days. I have not had a lot of experience of taking teams in the middle of the season, I think I have done it once before with Porto. But I have thought about it a lot and I have to trust the base that is already here. It is not about my fingerprint or myself, it is about stability to provide some comfort to the boys. Let’s see.”

‘I realised I made mistakes’
“I believe so. I always thought the 11 months wasn’t a waste of time – I was to think, to analyse, to prepare, to anticipate things.

“You never lose your DNA, your identity, you are what you are, the good things and bad. Don’t ask me what the mistakes are but I realised I made mistakes and I’m not going to make the same mistakes. I’ll make new mistakes but not the same.

“I’m relaxed, motivated and ready, and I think the players have felt that in the two days. This is about Tottenham, it’s not about me. You go through periods in life and in this period it’s not about me – it’s about the club, the players and the fans, and I’m here to help them.”

‘The players have to feel good’

On speaking to Spurs’ out-of-contract players, Mourinho added: “It’s early days. I have had no time for individual cases, I don’t know how I can try to influence them. The first thing is for the players to feel good, and if they are going to leave in January, or June, or sign a new contract, it has to be based on feeling good.

“Feeling good is being available on Saturday and being ready for the game. It’s about the club and fundamentally you have to be happy, you have to choose what makes you happy.

“In the short term we have to try to get two results in the next two matches. In the Premier League we have to disappear from an area we don’t belong. Then in the Champions League we have two games to qualify and if we qualify in the first match it will be better.”

The ‘Humble One’?
“I am humble, humble enough to try and analysis my career – not just the last year, but the whole thing, the evolution, the problems and the solutions. Not to blame anyone else.

“It was a great thing. I went really deep with that analysis. A break was very positive for me. It was the first summer I did not work and I felt a little bit at a loss during that pre-season.”

He added: “I was always humble, in my way. The problem is you didn’t understand that.”

‘Nobody wants Tottenham to win more than me’

Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho on his previous comment as Chelsea manager that he would never go to Spurs: “That was before I was sacked! This is modern football. When my father played, the same players played for the same club for 15-20 years. In society now everything is fast, even relationships are fast, players get tired of each other, of the manager.

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“I went to Manchester United with a free mind and a free heart, I loved the fans, the people who worked in the club, and now it is about Spurs and there is no bigger fan than me in the world. Nobody wants Tottenham to win more than me.

“We cannot win the Premier League this season, but we can win it next season. Not will, but can.”

‘We have to go together’
“I understand people will look at me, like when a top player goes to a club people focus on him and his success. But I think it’s a club vision, a club objective. It’s about us.

“[I’ve had] two decades of big clubs, big challenges and big expectations. I am guilt of it because I create so many expectations, or I went to a club that grew in such a direction that they were waiting for better days,. We have to go together and think of the good things we can do.”

‘I am a man of many clubs’
“They have to see me as Mr Porto, Mr Inter Milan and Mr Real Madrid. I am a club man, but a man of many clubs. I want to have this adventure, go through many countries, going through the Grand Slam of England, Spain and Italy.

“England is the football country which is the best, the most enjoyable. It is normal that managers change clubs. I would not be surprised if Mauricio Pochettino is a manager somewhere else in the Premier League. That is modernity.

“But, when I come up against one of my old clubs, I only have one club. I am not Manchester United, or Chelsea, or Real Madrid. I am all of them. At each, I give everything. And that is what I will do here.”

‘Real Madrid president loves me’

“If you want to call my friends at Real Madrid, I have some many friends there. The first is the president, he loves me and I love him. I am very proud to leave behind those human relationships.

“Yesterday I got 50 text messages from people from Manchester United, from people all over the club. That is the most important thing after the medals and trophies.”

‘Never lost a UCL final’
“I don’t know because I’ve never lost a Champions League final but I can imagine it’s not easy. You reach one of the biggest moments you can achieve and you cannot do it.

“But Liverpool. One year they lost the Premier League by one point and the Champions League. Then the following season they’re very strong in the Premier League and the season after they lost the Champions League final they won it.”

Playing style
“Very similar, that’s what I keep saying. I will try to add some details and sometimes they can make the difference. Progressively we’ll arrive to a fingerprint but the style of play should always be adapted – not to the club but to the players’ qualities.”

‘If you don’t share my principles then we have a problem’

“I read something about Kobe Bryant, a serial winner and a top professional. He says ‘people say I’m difficult but I’m only difficult for the ones who don’t share my principles’. With me everything’s about the team, it’s about the group, professionalism, respect for each other, the club and the fans.

“I cannot run away from this. If there’s someone who doesn’t share these principles then we have a problem because this is the way I think football should be. To be a big player they have to make others better.”

“When I don’t win I cannot be happy and I cannot change that. That is my DNA. I hope I can influence my players, because if you are happy losing football matches it is very hard to be a winner.

“Sometimes you have to work with people you don’t love and work well. I have principles that I cannot change and one of those is that I don’t think I can change.”

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