Jose Mourinho was shown the exit door at Tottenham in April of this year, and within a few weeks he’d already secured a new role in charge of AS Roma.
Paulo Fonseca was already in the job, and it was agreed he’d leave at the end of last season. Mourinho had several months to plan his approach to this campaign, and seemed to be frustrated in the transfer market, specifically when looking for a combative midfielder.
Fonseca, meanwhile, came within touching distance of getting the Spurs job, only to be pushed aside when Fabio Paratici had other ideas.
Roma have clearly started this season better than Tottenham, with Mourinho’s side fourth after six games, and Nuno Espirito Santo finding his new club in ninth place. Not everything is going perfectly for the former Chelsea and Manchester United boss, though, with Sunday’s defeat to Lazio surely something that will sting.
He was directly quizzed on the comparison to Tottenham, and using just 13 players in his opening Spurs games, with the media clearly wanting to get some deeper reasoning over why this is a good way of starting out at a club.
In reply, Il Mattino quote Mourinho as saying: “I don’t want to argue with you, but if I let 20 players play, you would ask me why I don’t bet on stability and automatism. There is always this discourse, when you go towards a discourse of stability at the beginning of the season without having physical limits and fatigue, then the time will come to make rotations.
“Other people prefer to do the opposite, mine is an obvious option. We need stability and trust, a lot of people who are not playing are young and they need time, they are not prepared to join the team right away. It seems a normal process to me.”
