Jose Mourinho's sacking proof of decline of a manager well past his best

Tottenham's decision to remove the Portuguese – who perhaps does not relate to a younger generation any more – was predictable

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  Tottenham Hotspur coach Jose Mourinho ahead of the Premier League match against Everton at Goodison Park on April 16, 2021. The match finished 2-2 and was the Portuguese's last game in charge of Spurs before he was sacked. AFP

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  Tottenham's Jose Mourinho gives a post-match interview after the FA Cup third round football match against Marine on January 10, 2021. Tottenham won the game 5-0. AFP

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  Tottenham Hotspur's Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho watches the players warm up before the start of the Premier League football match against West Ham United at The London Stadium on November 23, 2019. It was Mourinho's first match in charge after succeeding Mauricio Pochettino. Spurs won 3-2. AFP

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  Tottenham Hotspur's Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho celebrates with his coaching staff after the Premier League match against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on July 26, 2020. AFP

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  Tottenham Hotspur's Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho watches from the touchline during the English Premier League football match against Manchester United at Old Trafford on December 4, 2019. AFP

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  Jose Mourinho watches as midfielder Harry Winks vies with Olympiakos' midfielder Daniel Podence during the UEFA Champions League Group B football match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in north London, on November 26, 2019. AFP

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  Jose Mourinho walks on the pitch before the Premier League football match between Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, on July 12, 2020. AFP

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  Jose Mourinho with striker Harry Kane and midfielder Harry Winks at the final whistle during the Premier League match against West Ham United on November 23, 2019. AFP

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  Jose Mourinho attends a team training session at Tottenham Hotspur's Enfield Training Centre, in north London on March 9, 2020. AFP

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  Mourinho gestures to the referee following a foul on a player during the English FA Cup fourth round football match against Southampton at St Mary's Stadium on January 25, 2020. AFP

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  Mourinho reacts during the Premier League football match against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park in south London on July 26, 2020. AFP

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  Mourinho speaks with Manchester United's Ivorian defender Eric Bailly on June 19, 2020. AFP

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  Liverpool's German manager Jurgen Klopp greets Mourinho ahead of the Premier League football match at Anfield in Liverpool on December 16, 2020. AFP

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  Mourinho speaks to his players during the Premier League football match against Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium on July 9, 2020. AFP

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  Manchester United's Daniel James collides with Mourinho on the touchline at Old Trafford in Manchester, north west England, on December 4, 2019. AFP

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  Mourinho gestures on the touchline during the FA Cup third round match between Middlesbrough and Tottenham Hotspur at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough, north-east England on January 5, 2020. AFP

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  Tottenham striker Son Heung-min celebrates with teammates and Mourinho after scoring their second goal during the Premier League football match against Manchester City on February 2, 2020. AFP

Tottenham had just announced their participation in a division where poor results will carry no penalty when they sacked a manager after a wretched run. Spot the contradiction. Perhaps Jose Mourinho is the first manager in the European Super League to be fired. He is at least blameless there, but culpable in the Premier League.

Spurs were top in December and are seventh in April. No wonder they want a world without Champions League qualification. It is increasingly unsurprising they would prefer one without Mourinho. This season has become a huge missed opportunity, a way of undoing Mauricio Pochettino’s legacy and further proof of the decline of a manager whose greatness is firmly confined in the past.

Even Sunday’s League Cup final against Manchester City, potentially bringing Spurs’ first silverware since 2008, was not enough to delay his departure. Mourinho was supposed to be the guarantee of glory; instead, for the first time since his 20-game stint in charge of Uniao de Leiria 20 years ago, he leaves a club without winning anything.

That adds an element of novelty, but the rest of Mourinho’s demise felt all so familiar it amounts to an indictment of Daniel Levy for appointing him. This was utterly predictable.

The only differences were that it unravelled quicker and that the indignities were bigger. A supposed specialist in the short term did not even achieve success then. Mourinho used to win the league in his second season everywhere; at Manchester United his sophomore campaign ended in second.

He leaves Spurs after 17 months, with fewer highs – a 6-1 win at Old Trafford, a couple of victories over Pep Guardiola and Manchester City and a pair of North London derby triumphs – and his greatest low, the Europa League defeat to Dinamo Zagreb, arguably the worst result by any English club in Europe for the best part of 20 years.

He goes when Harry Kane is clearly considering his future; along with Heung-Min Son, Tanguy Ndombele and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, he is perhaps only one of four to perform to their capabilities this season. That the striker has registered 21 goals and 13 assists underlines Mourinho’s underachievement; with an elite player in sensational form, Spurs have still floundered.

If footballers used to want to play for Mourinho, now dressing rooms are alienated. Where there were loyalists, he generated dissidents at Real Madrid, Chelsea, United and now Spurs. It is hard to escape the conclusion that he does not relate to a younger generation.

Perhaps Mourinho thought he was accomplishing something by scapegoating and marginalising Dele Alli; instead one of England’s finest talents has just had a bit-part role. Gareth Bale had a golden month; otherwise Mourinho has got little from him.

He has made his squad less than the sum of their considerable parts. He used to be a byword for clarity of thought but chopped and changed his team and altered his system; the consequences of mistakes brought fearful football. If Pochettino’s positivity was often reflected on the pitch, so was Mourinho’s negativity. Spurs lost an ethos, an identity and an energy, the factors that had propelled them forwards.

His constant carping was counter-productive. The tactic of trying to shift the blame – for dropping deep, conceding late goals, poor defending or bad results – was utterly transparent. It was tempting to wonder what Mourinho thought a £15 million-a-year manager was for, given his refusal to take responsibility for anything that went wrong.

And much did. Mourinho suffered 10 league defeats in a season, for the first time. Since December’s win against Arsenal, Spurs have more losses than wins. They have dropped 20 points from winning positions and a bottom-half record in the last four months. He turned toxic; he always seems to.

He represented Levy’s folly, a chairman blinded by stardust hiring an anachronism. Perhaps he will be the last to make the Mourinho mistake.

The Portuguese’s final home game concluded in strange fashion, with an odd row about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer over parenting. That was Mourinho, entertaining and quotable off the pitch but, with chances of a top-four finish disappearing, losing and failing on it. And, in the final irony, Spurs borrowed from his playbook with the diversionary tactic. He was sacked as they used the Super League furore to deflect attention from their managerial problems.