Jose Mourinho has endured some unenthusiastic moments in the hands of Jurgen Klopp in recent years. For the records, the Portuguese gaffer has lost his job twice at different clubs after losing to Jurgen Klopp’s led Liverpool side.
The first sack came after the 3-1 loss at the Stamford bridge in 2015 having won the League in the previous season. The second sack came after another 3-1 loss at Anfield in December 2018, but this time with a hapless Manchester United side.
Jurgen Klopp’s gengen-pressing tactics aren’t the only antidote to Guardiola’s tiki-taka but apparently, almost every top coach in Europe looks forward to keeping the Reds at bay. Liverpool will march out later today at White Hart Lane to face a debilitated Spurs side, the North Londoners will be without two injured senior players in Harry Kane and Hugo Lloris.
As the clock keeps ticking for Jurgen Klopp and his Liverpool side, Mourinho will be looking forward to denting the Kop’s aspiration of ending the season on a clean slate without losing any game in the Premier League. A feat that was achieved by Arsenal in 2004.
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The finest of managers in football are most times consumed with the problem of how they can slow down a team that is unbeaten in the League, but same cannot be said for Jose Mourinho as he looks to be a master at causing upsets for his big rivals in games of this enormity – little wonder he’s The Special One at deploying dark defensive method.
In big matches like this, a typical José Mourinho loves analyzing his opponent forensically and deploys some strategies to make sure that his team doesn’t lose the game after 90 minutes.
Jose’s first assignment in today’s encounter will be to negate Liverpool’s duo of Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold at the right and left backs respectively. The full-backs already shared 14 assists in 38 appearances for Liverpool in the EPL this season.
After ensuring that Liverpool’s fullbacks have been silenced, the Spurs manager would be looking forward to forcing the Premier League table topper to play in the middle where the Londoners stand a massive chance of shocking Liverpool with an uncommon direct counter-attacking measure in the game.
Although, Spur’s apparent problem going into this blockbuster encounter is their inability to keep a clean sheet since the appointment of Jose Mourinho; hence the need for Jose’s side to be compact at the back against a high scoring side.
Jose will be shooting himself in the foot should he decide to play with a 3 man defense. Roberto Firmino possibly might have great success at exploiting the back 3 trios of Serge Aurier, Davidson Sanchez and Toby Alderweireld or Ryan Sessegnon.
Jose’s preferred formation seems to be the 4-5-1 formation but a side that wants to reduce the Foray of Liverpool’s full-backs shouldn’t deploy such tactics, instead, a 4-4-2 setup will be perfect for the team. That will practically render the Reds’ full-back powerless and their ability to make short and sharp runs at Spurs’ probable loopholes will be extremely difficult.
