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Kevin Doyle On The Simple Change Mourinho Will Make To Turn Spurs Around

Kevin Doyle On The Simple Change Mourinho Will Make To Turn Spurs Around
Gary Connaughton
By Gary Connaughton
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Jose Mourinho has won his first two games in charge of Spurs, and the club's supporters are already hopeful of an upturn in their fortunes. The last few months of the Pochettino era were fairly dire, with a run to the Champions League final masking what was a poor end to the season.

This campaign has hardly been much better, with the team 12 points adrift of the top four. Mourinho will not have much time on the training pitch to impose his philosophy on the team, but Kevin Doyle believes that may not be an issue.

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Speaking on The Buildup podcast this week, Doyle said Mourinho's biggest weapon over the coming months will be his man management.

**Listen and Subscribe to The Buildup Podcast here.**

The players will listen. Maybe it's as simple as saying 'Harry, will you stay in the box a bit more for me today, in the last couple of months you've been everywhere but just get in the box', simple things like that.

He can't make massive style of play changes, that type of thing takes a lot of work. But they can do individual things like that.

It's not rocket science. Sometimes you'll be watching TV and you'll see pundits drawing line here, there, and everywhere and trying to make it seem like it has to be done this way or the other way.

The players are all coached at that level, they're all pretty good. Speaking to them the right way is as big of an art as setting them up the right way on the pitch tactically, knowing how to deal with players.

Mourinho, from what I know when he's at his best from speaking to Damien Duff who had him at Chelsea, he still calls him 'the boss'. He seems to have that sort of rapport where he can go into places like that, speak to Harry Kane and that's all he needs.

He doesn't need to go onto the training pitch and work miracles. He can do that in the summer when he has more time.

Doyle claims many managers have used this method over the years, with Alex Ferguson a master of the art.

I was speaking to John O'Shea about Alex Ferguson. If he took a session the players would be distraught, he only took one every one or two years. He didn't do the tactical stuff, he didn't do coaching. He left that to his coaches.

He was more about going around and having a quiet word in players' ears, giving them a bit of confidence, telling them they were looking or training fantastic.

I had Harry Redknapp at QPR, he didn't do anything tactically, he left that to his coaches. He walked around after training and would come up and have a little word and say 'Kevin you were fantastic today', then walk off.

You would go out of there feeling sky high.

Some managers just don't have that ability. They are purely tactics and don't have that arm around the shoulder, touchy-feely side to it, a little word in your ear.

I think the best managers are a bit of both, being able to deal with both sides of it. If you have a team down the lower divisions they need work and they need shape, but if you go into Spurs the players have played all the formations, they know different systems.

He will be able to tell them and they will take it onboard quickly. They won't need massive work on the training ground that way.

They will need to be told they're brilliant again.

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