Premier League sack race odds: Jose Mourinho odds cut to leave Tottenham after opening day defeat by Everton
Jose Mourinho’s odds of being the first Premier League manager to leave took a tumble after Tottenham’s limp display against Everton, coupled with their manager’s list of excuses after the final whistle.
Over recent years, Mourinho has developed an unwanted pattern of things going south around the third-season mark, but just one game into his first full one at Spurs and the vultures are already circling.
West Ham boss David Moyes still heads the betting as the 2/1 favourite, with his odds also shortening after the Hammers lost 2-0 to Newcastle on Saturday evening.
That game at the London Stadium was supposed to be West Ham’s big chance for three points before a brutal run of fixtures.
Moyes’ situation is the only thing stopping Mourinho from being the sack race favourite, as his odds have been cut to 8/1 second favourite after defeat by Everton.
He had been as big as 20/1 before that game, but the price shortened following such an awful display against the Toffees.
First Premier League manager to go odds
- David Moyes (West Ham) - 2/1
- Jose Mourinho (Spurs) - 8/1
- Scott Parker (Fulham) - 8/1
- Roy Hodgson (Palace) - 9/1
- Dean Smith (Villa) - 12/1
- Slaven Bilic (West Brom) - 14/1
While an opening day loss can be excused, the manner of the performance has set alarm bells ringing among Spurs fans, with the team looking listless and lethargic throughout.
Mourinho was quick to blame the bizarre pre-season circumstances for his team being undercooked – with international duty, positive Covid-19 tests and quarantines all being put forward as reasons for the display.
“Harry Kane trained with us once,” he said. “Moussa Sissoko, a couple and I am not going player by player. For different reasons many of our players didn’t have proper pre-seasons.
“We had cases of positive Covid, we have the right not to say which players, but we had players, we had other players in quarantine due to proximity with positive players.
“We had a player in quarantine because he was on holiday in a country which the government quarantined, we had national teams where many of them went to their team so it was a difficult pre-season.
“I couldn’t expect them to be sharp, intense, agile. But I was expecting much more individually and collectively. It disappoints me, and that is where I have now to work.
"The players who didn’t have pre-season, we don’t have now the possibility to give them one but we have a lot of matches to play consecutively and we have to use these matches, not just to win them.
"The knockout ones are obviously decisive ones with everything decided in 120 minutes or even penalties - we have to try to use this to improve the form of some players because some of them were really in trouble.”
Analysis - Mourinho or Moyes?
OK, it's only the first game of the season, so nothing too bad about losing, especially to what looks a fine Everton side, but Spurs hardly laid a glove on them, and despite what he's been saying in All Or Nothing, Mourinho's Spurs just don't seem to have any fight in them.
They looked second to everything, and the stats back that up. They made nine tackles to Everton's 17, while the Toffees won almost twice as many individual duels - in fact only two Spurs players won more duels than they lost.
Heavy legs can be expected at the start of the new campaign, especially this season, but it's a bit early to be pulling out excuses like that and Mourinho already reaching for them is not what I'd consider a confident sign.
The beginning of the end with Mourinho is always like this, with attacks on individual players not far behind, before the entire thing just falls apart. It's only the early stages, but the smile has well and truly gone and the grumpy Jose looks like coming out sooner than we expected.
It's Southampton away next, and after the Saints lost against Palace, Ralph Hasenhuttl will want a response - and his sides usually have energy and intent if nothing else, so Spurs will have to step it up big time to match them at St Mary's.
The only reason Mourinho is as big as 8/1 to leave is the position Moyes finds himself in after losing what looked like the only winnable game in their first seven fixtures.
The rest, as shown above, are brutal, and right now you'd have a hard time finding anyone who'd back them to get more than a point out of the next six games - they could already be cut adrift at the bottom by the end of October!
And who will shoulder the blame? Will it be the players for not performing, the owners for not bringing in enough players, or poor old David Moyes?
Yes, that's right, it'll be the manager, it's always the manager, and Moyes, sadly, looks like being on a hiding to nothing here and it'd be a big shock if he isn't the first manager to go this season.
Odds correct at 0757 BST on 14/9/20