Premier League review: Bigger tests to come for ‘changed’ Mourinho at Tottenham, Pochettino’s shadow looming o

As we know, folks, seven days is a long time in football.

Yes, just seven days ago Mauricio Pochettino was still technically the gaffer at Tottenham, point-blank refusing to resign from his post as Daniel Levy flipped between a long lunch here, a long lunch there and brushed up on his pillow-talk in Portuguese.

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And now, here we are. A whole week later and Tottenham have a new sheriff in town, an away win tucked under their arm for the first time in quite a while and a spike in Spurs pyjama sales.

Is it just me, or does the London-based Jose cut a completely different cloth to the Manchester-based Jose? Maybe it is the comfort of home living as opposed to being holed up in a five-star hotel, but this Jose looks relaxed, calm, almost serene and claims to have learned a lot in the last twelve months.

That does remain to be seen, of course – it’s easy to turn up to a new job saying how you are a different chap, you love the modern footballer, you understand you have no actual money to spend in the remainder of this decade and that you believe the current squad are top quality because you’ve tried to buy most of them in the past (though nobody here is buying that Jose is a secret Serge Aurier fan).

The real test will be when things have settled down a bit in North London, Mourinho has grown tired of Eric Dier forgetting what colour shirt Spurs are wearing and Aurier refusing to actually defend properly. Maybe we will see a bit of the old Jose then.

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It wouldn’t surprise me if the guys at Amazon looked at the fixture list and decided that West Ham away was the ideal game for Mourinho to return to the Premier League fold. I mean, they run the club now – don’t they? West Ham away is the perfect match for anyone to get their feet under a new table, and Spurs certainly capitalised before reverting to type in the last 20 minutes.

Dele Alli told his brother to take the rest of 2019 off and returned to the field of play, putting in his most Dele Alli like performance of the year. We got an early insight into Jose having Christian Eriksen’s card 100% marked with the fact that the Dane was given a run out at the end (and that is when Spurs started to forget about defending).

As for West Ham, the board will have noticed that it is possible to sack a South American no matter how much it costs – and the names of Rafa Benitez and Chris Hughton are starting to echo around the Athletics Stadium. Sean Dyche, possibly because of the slight similarity in colours worn, is also believed to be in the running. Surely the bigger need for the Hammers is a goalkeeper on January 1? With Fabianski still out then it would probably make sense to pack Roberto off on-loan to the Spanish third division and bring in anyone available instead. Maybe someone better than Jordan Archer though, eh? Yeah, if you don’t instantly know who he is then that is pretty much my point.

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In the end, this Tottenham win had nothing to do with Mourinho, according to Mr Humble himself. He is a changed man, remember. Although the mask did slip a little in his opening press conference on Thursday – on one hand, complete humility. On the other, when asked whether losing the Champions League final might have damaged Tottenham more than people could understand Jose simply replied, ‘how would I know? I have never lost a Champions League final!’ Don’t change too much, Jose. And is it worth a punt on Spurs righting those Champions League wrongs now he is in charge?

Look, I like Riyad Mahrez as a footballer a lot – but even my dog turned away in disgust when he was allowed to drift on to that left foot and pass Man City’s second into the bottom corner. Don’t give me the whole ‘well it is one thing knowing what he is going to do and another stopping it’ rubbish. Don’t show him inside. Don’t show him inside if Jorginho isn’t really that bothered about closing that space. Just don’t show him inside.

Chelsea were superb precisely up until the moment they gave the ball away and six seconds later conceded against the chasing champions. They had more of the ball, they were winning it back quickly and N’Golo Kante, who only seems to score against City, had them ahead.

And then City killed them.

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There is so much to like about Frank Lampard’s Chelsea and, indeed, Lampard himself – he was brave enough to drop his surrogate son for this one, Mount starting on the bench. He had the side spot-diddly tactically until the scores were level. Chelsea even had more possession by the end of the game. It just goes to show though, without goals possession alone doesn’t get you three points – and boy did City need these three points given how things went for Liverpool at Selhurst Park.

“It is the sign of a top team to win when you don’t play well.”

“To win the league, you need a little bit of luck.”

“These things will balance out over a season.”

No, you haven’t suddenly tuned into more in-depth analysis on Match of the Day – these are the classic cliches that sum up Liverpool perfectly this season.

They weren’t very good against Palace, like they’ve not been that good in other matches this season. But they won, of course they did. And they got some assistance from the referee and VAR, of course they did. And things might still balance out by the end of the season.

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It was Bobby Firmino who struck oh-so-late to give King Klopp another three points, but it was Palace’s disallowed-by-VAR goal earlier in the match that caused the most controversy. Every non-Liverpool fan in the world will probably think, ‘was that a clear and obvious error’ where even the most impartial Scouser on the planet is adamant it needed to be overturned.

Either way, Liverpool are getting the rub of the VAR green at the moment – but will it last for the whole season?

If City needed a win to keep Liverpool’s coattails within some kind of grasp, then the same went for Leicester City. Brighton were put to the sword this time as the league’s most-miserly defence kept another clean sheet and sparkled with some of their attacking play. Things are going so well for Jamie Vardy right now that he can miss a penalty, subconsciously convince the ref to take a look on VAR and get a second stab at the cherry due to encroachment. Leicester remain second.

Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said that he wasn’t worried that Mr Ed could now go and get Pochettino for £40m less than it would have cost him last season. When Sheffield United went 2-0 up, it would have been great to find out his thoughts there and then.

There was a certain irony in the statistic that told us Man United had spent more on Blades fan Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan-Bissaka than Chris Wilder’s club had spent on players in their entire history – only for it to be three players who cost the Red Devils the grand total of nothing to get them back in the game at 3-2.

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Man United were suddenly playing with a bit of tempo, a bit of energy and I can assure you it had nothing to do with Phil Jones being subbed and Jesse Lingard coming on. It might have had slightly more to do with Mason Greenwood being summoned from the bench, but hey – Ole knows nothing about tactics, right?

As for Sheffield United, they showed once again why they are one of the better sides to watch this season as they dominated the game for all other than the few minutes where Daniel James took the game by the scruff of the neck and caused the havoc that saw Man United score three.

The problem is, they didn’t see it out – and even VAR couldn’t ruin the party this time, correctly ruling that Oli McBurnie’s arms do not start on his chest. The equaliser was given – and David de Gea probably should have saved it seeing that he got there.

Ole will probably make it to Christmas whilst Mauricio gets some time to go and refresh, but come the time you are sending out your Easter eggs, there could well be a new man in the Old Trafford dugout.

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It tells you all you need to know when a 96th-minute equaliser for Arsenal at home to Southampton is considered a good thing. OK, that doesn’t make as much sense as I hoped but you probably know what I mean. Not many would have expected the Poch to be on his bike before Unai Emery, but there you go – and Emery is certainly not looking to make the most of this reprieve. Arsenal were woeful – is David Luiz back in position yet? Southampton will be gutted as this was a potential gift of three points, until Alexandre Lacazette, rarely seen on a football field in the 96th minute under Emery, made it 2-2.

You have to feel a little bit sorry for Simon Francis, the Bournemouth skipper. In his first game back since his Boxing Day 2018 injury, he collected two yellow cards and looked worryingly off the pace. Bournemouth didn’t do him many favours by being so poor, but after almost a year of wanting to be back on the pitch it was over within 30 minutes. Bournemouth have won once in eight, which sounds about right for them at this time of year as Eddie Howe cunningly distances himself from links to top jobs by losing football matches at just the right time.

Watford are rock-bottom once again after they got Dyched and Everton crumbled at home to Norwich City. Don’t get me wrong, I still think both Watford and Norwich might end up the two earliest relegated teams in Premier League history – but it was nice to see Norwich, who do try and play a bit even when common sense should prevail, get a confidence-boosting win.

As for Marco Silva, there is every chance he’ll get to spend Christmas with the family this year.