Is it a little early to be publicly wondering who might replace your current manager after the first match of the season? Well, yes. But after a pretty demoralizing and frankly somewhat humiliating 1-0 loss to Everton at home after week 1, is that stopping us from leaning into the skid? Nope.
Let’s be reasonable. There’s literally no chance that Jose Mourinho is going to lose his job anytime soon. Most likely he’s got a full season ahead of him (and us) and he’ll be judged by how well he and the team perform over the course of this current campaign.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t dream. Here are your player ratings to the theme of possible replacement managers for when Mourinho gets the axe.
5 stars: Mauricio Pochettino
Feel like pure sh—t, just want him back
No Tottenham players reached this lofty height.
4 stars: Julian Nagelsmann
He’s young, he’s dynamic, he’s hungry, he’s currently at RB Leipzig but whatever, he’d totally come to us, right?
Nope, no players were this good either. It was one of those matches.
3.5 stars: Ralph Hassenhuttl
If we’re looking for a current Premier League manager who could reasonably step in and make Spurs better, why not the Southampton boss? After all, it sure worked out pretty good the last time we took Southampton’s manager away from them.
Hugo Lloris (Community — 3.0): I mean, nobody was especially good in this match, but the one thing Hugo did do is a fantastic job shunting Richarlison out wide after Ben Davies played him in. Richarlison should’ve scored, but Hugo did exactly what he was supposed to do and it worked. That’s an extra half star in my book.
Matt Doherty (Community — 3.0): He doesn’t carry the ball forward as well as Serge Aurier, but he also hasn’t shown the propensity to make ridiculous mistakes like Serge Aurier, so... net win? Should’ve scored and looked good in interplay with Lucas at times, but ran out of gas.
3 stars: Sam Allardyce
A three star manager would be, like, your average replacement manager. Not relegation fodder, but won’t get you into the Champions League either. Hello there, Big Sam. Nobody would LIKE this, but considering the other options? Well. It’s a shrug-emoji personified. And we wouldn’t get relegated.
Son Heung-Min (Community — 3.0): Gave me a ton of hope early on as he made Seamus Coleman look silly on the left flank. A couple of good passes into the box, too, especially the ball for Kane. Pretty good match, but he tired significantly (along with everyone else) in the second half.
Tanguy Ndombele (Community — 2.5): As I mentioned in the post-match, Tanguy’s first two passes were progressive line-splitters and the moment he came on Spurs looked better. He just adds something that no other player on Spurs can add and that’s what makes him so valuable. Had a couple of bad passes later and wasn’t perfect by any means, but if this was his big chance, he may not have impressed but he certainly didn’t fluff his lines. Play him in Plovdiv.
2.5 stars: Ledley King caretaker manager (with Ryan Mason lead assistant)
So let’s be real — if Mourinho doesn’t make it much past Christmas, this is likely who we’re going to see until the end of the season, right? I have no idea if Ledley is a good manager or not — honestly, I don’t even know if he’s even finished his coaching badges — but both he and Mason are Spurs through and through. It would be pretty miserable to see Spurs limp to the end of a season under Caretaker Ledley only to see him let go at season’s end, but on the other hand... like, why not give it a go?
Pierre-Emile Højbjerg (Community — 2.5): He was fine, mostly. He’s good with the ball, covers a lot of ground, pretty okay defensively. The problem was that he was partnered with Harry Winks. Pair him with a creative midfielder and I think you’ll see his game in a better light. One major EXCEPT was that orange-card challenge. He’s a lucky boy and gets docked a half star for it. Are we giving him a pass this time? Probably. Do I care, especially? Nope.
Eric Dier (Community — 2.5): Got turned around a number of times by Everton’s front line, and didn’t exactly cover himself in glory, but this is one of those rare times where he was (barely) better than Toby.
Harry Kane (Community — 2.5): Spurs tend to go as well as Kane goes, and he did not go against Everton, managing only one shot. Yes, his service was abysmal, but if there’s one thing we know Kane can do it’s create his own chances. He didn’t do that.
Dele (Community — 2.0): Honestly, I didn’t think Dele was terrible enough to get yanked at halftime. He was poor on the ball but pretty good off the ball. Passed when he should’ve shot and shot when he should’ve passed, but he didn’t deserve to be the fall-guy for Mourinho’s tactical screw-up.
Toby Alderweireld (Community — 2.5): A bad day at the office. I don’t blame him too much for not catching up to Richarlison after Davies’ hospital ball, but while Calvert-Lewin was using him as a springboard on Everton’s goal he still should’ve have been outjumped in the first place. A rare bad game.
Steven Bergwijn (Community — 2.5): Fairly tidy with the ball but didn’t do enough with the few chances he had. Pretty anonymous.
2 stars: Scott Parker
R.A.F. Captain Parker gets five stars for his hair and good looks but based on current evidence I’m not sure he’s a particularly good manager, unless Fulham start improving in a hurry.
Ben Davies (Community — 2.0): That telegraphed back-pass. Awful. I have no idea what Ben was trying to do in this match, but whatever it was it was not part of the plan.
Moussa Sissoko (Community — 2.0): Played in three different positions during his 45 minutes of action in the second half and was pretty poor in all of them. Was kind of set up to fail by Mourinho, but still.
Lucas Moura (Community — 2.5): Lucas is real good when he has space to move and a straight line in which to travel. He’s also a decently good defensive winger. He showed none of that against Everton. Just two tackles, 17 lost duels, 0 for 2 on his dribble attempts, and couldn’t keep ahold of the ball.
Jose Mourinho (Community — 2.0): Mourinho-ball can often work, so long as you don’t concede first and you have the players to implement it. Spurs weren’t abject in the first half, but Mourinho undid most of the positivity from the first half by his inexplicable substitution of Dele for Moussa Sissoko at halftime. His explanation didn’t hold water. The players weren’t up to it, but Mourinho didn’t help at all.
1.5 stars: Tim Sherwood
Great choice if we’re going to be playing Dele as a left back and Sanchez at the 10 behind Hugo. Much of a muchness.
Harry Winks (Community — 2.0): Hoooooooooooooooo buddy. We don’t give out one star ratings, but we’ll occasionally give out 1.5s for those extra specially bad matches. This is one. Passed laterally, absent positionally, got dribbled by constantly. This was an awful match, even for Harry Winks.
1 star: Keeping Mourinho
Based on current evidence, no Tottenham Hotspur players were as bad as potentially keeping Jose Mourinho for an extended period of time. Maybe they’ll get there? Goals!