OFFICIAL: Tottenham Hotspur appoint Jose Mourinho as its next manager

This is not an article I expected to be writing, yet here we are.

Less than 24 hours after Tottenham Hotspur Chairman Daniel Levy sacked Mauricio Pochettino, the club has announced that Jose Mourinho is the new manager.

In a statement on Tottenham’s official website, Levy expressed admiration for Mourinho as the man to take Spurs into the next phase of the club.

“In Jose we have one of the most successful managers in football. He has a wealth of experience, can inspire teams and is a great tactician. He has won honours at every club he has coached. We believe he will bring energy and belief to the dressing room.”

The rumors of Mourinho taking over at Tottenham go back to August and the Portuguese manager had even taken in a match or two at the new stadium during the turmoil that has been the 2019-2020 campaign.

The deal is through the end of the 2022-2023 season.

This is the sharpest double-edged sword a football supporter can find. On the positive side, Mourinho has won an entire trophy case worth of silverware, 25 of them in total. It’s also worth mentioning that he’s done it at every club he’s managed at. Spurs have not won a trophy since the 2008 League Cup, meaning we’re approaching 12 full years since that victory over Chelsea. Mourinho can obviously change that.

The flip side to this is that Mourinho usually leaves scorched earth in his wake in a not-so-quiet way. Most recently, he was the manager at Manchester United last season before he was sacked and replaced with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. That was a pretty messy divorce, never mind the two exits he had at Chelsea.

Look, I’m not going to sugar coat this: Most of the masthead, myself included, absolutely hate this. We aren’t going to apologize for it, either. Yes, Mourinho is arguably the best manager out there that’s available and we acknowledge that. He also will not cost the club further compensation if Levy went after Julian Nagelsmann, Brendan Rodgers or Eddie Howe. His accolades are numerous and there’s no doubt he can right the ship. This just feels wrong on so many levels.

Regardless of our opinion, Jose Mourinho is now the manager of Tottenham Hotspur. Time to see if he can right the ship.