Mauricio Pochettino reckons Jose Mourinho is an inspiration to all young bosses. The pair meet at Old Trafford on Monday night when Poch’s Tottenham take on Mourinho’s Manchester United.
The Special One, 55, is under pressure after a summer of discontent and his team’s 3-2 defeat at Brighton last Sunday.
But Pochettino, 46, said: “Mourinho, I try to copy a lot of things. For every single manager younger than him, he was the inspirational manager. “He is an unbelievable manager but, of course, the circumstances that happen with myself and happen with different managers is always going to be up and down.”
Tottenham have won their opening two matches — 2-1 at Newcastle and 3-1 against Fulham at Wembley — and victory would see them take maximum points from their first three league matches for the first time since 2009.
Mauricio Pochettino believes that Tottenham can win at Old Trafford for the first time since under Tim Sherwood in 2014.
That would be all the more impressive given the North Londoners did not make any summer signings and have seen the opening of their new stadium delayed indefinitely due to construction problems. They also have ten stars who only had three weeks’ rest after the World Cup.
Poch said: “We expect to try to help them in the best way, to keep them fit during the next ten months.
“But that is so difficult, because it’s tough here in England with four competitions.
“It’s a massive challenge. We are talking a lot with the coaching staff, medical staff, to take the best decisions.
“Now more than ever we need to be clever in how we manage the players.
Some Manchester United fans still want Jose Mourinho to spend more money despite the end of the transfer window Pochettino says he still tries to copy Mourinho.
“They have to be judged more individually than before. And for the first few months you need to expect maybe we are going to play with different starting elevens, change a lot, maybe go from one system to another.
“The first few months are going to be tougher and we need to be sure with our opinion and knowledge so we don’t take risks with the players.”
One player whose fitness is not in doubt is Lucas Moura, linked with a move to Manchester United before he joined Spurs from Paris Saint-Germain in January for £25million.
The Brazilian failed to impress last season, but has shown this term he has clearly benefited from completing one of Pochettino’s punishing pre-season training programmes.
Is Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho the happy one, the special one or the miserable one?