Ben Davies has told talkSPORT Tottenham are ‘more aware’ of their opponents under Jose Mourinho than they were under Mauricio Pochettino.
The decision to hire Mourinho as Pochettino’s successor raised a fair few eyebrows due to their chalk and cheese playing styles.
And Davies, speaking to Drivetime, appeared to confirm as much, admitting that he and his teammates have had to adjust to a new way of playing since the Portuguese arrived last November.
He said: “Under Poch we very much had our style of play and it was just the high press, high intensity…
“Now I think we’re a bit more tactical, we’re a bit more aware of what we’re coming up against. We have a game plan for each game.”
The jury’s still out on Mourinho at Spurs despite their useful victory over Arsenal at the weekend.
The former Chelsea and Manchester United boss has struggled for consistency in his time at the north London club, having won 11 of their 23 league matches under his stewardship.
Qualification for next season’s Champions League is all-but over, especially after Manchester City’s ban from the competition was overturned.
And although he conceded the results haven’t been good enough for Spurs this season, Davies insists the players are buying into Mourinho’s ideas.
“In some games it hasn’t been what we’ve wanted but everyone’s buying into the skill set that Mourinho has and we all know that he’s a top, top manager,” the 27-year-old added.
“He’s won everything there is to win so us as players have got to put our trust into him and the results will follow.
“We know it [results this season] hasn’t been what we want, it has been stop-start but we can’t use that as an excuse.
“We’ve got to be better than that away from home and we know that.
“We’ll go away in the summer and I’m sure we’ll do a lot of work in pre-season, get ready for it and next year has to be a different story.”
Darren Bent says Tottenham fans won’t be happy with Jose Mourinho’s style and he is ‘lucky’ to be playing games behind closed doors
