Spurs Eye View: How Tottenham's Fans Took in Jose Mourinho's First Game

The moment of release for Tottenham Hotspur's travelling fans arrived in the 49th minute of Saturday's lunchtime game at London Stadium.

Spurs were 2-0 up and in full control against a desperately poor West Ham United team when Serge Aurier put a cross into the box from the right flank and Harry Kane stole in at the back post to head home his 175th goal in the club's colours. As the England striker was mobbed by his team-mates, the away fans at the foot of the Sir Trevor Brooking Stand celebrated with an abandon that spoke of 10 months of pent-up frustration.

It had been 10 months since Spurs' fans had last seen their team win away from home in the Premier League, and although West Ham ultimately pulled the score back to 3-2, it was clear from the moment that Kane's header hit the net that their long wait was coming to an end.

After defeats at Burnley, Southampton and Bournemouth, after James Maddison's 85th-minute winner for Leicester City in September and October's dismal 3-0 reverse at Brighton & Hove Albion, this, finally, was a moment for Spurs' supporters to savour. And savour it they did, turning to face the glum home fans sitting across the gangway in Block 114 and assailing them with mocking grins and exaggerated farewell waves. "Is there a fire drill?" was the refrain as the first disgruntled West Ham supporters stood up from their seats and headed for the outside of the stadium for the respite of the quiet, damp, grey afternoon.

As the match drew to a close, attention switched to West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini, who was targeted with chants of "You're getting sacked in the morning!" by the 3,000-odd supporters in the visitors' section. After the trauma of seeing their own manager sacked a few days previously, Spurs' fans will have felt sweet relief at the opportunity to turn their thoughts to the possibility of a vacancy opening up in another club's dugout.

Jose Mourinho, Spurs' new manager, was one of the last actors to leave the stage, lingering near the halfway line on the tunnel-side touchline to salute Dele Alli and Heung-Min Son after they had thrown their shirts to the away fans. Fleetingly, the Spurs fans broke into a chorus of their new manager's name, sung to the same tune—"La Donna e Mobile"—as the chant that reverberated around Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford in times gone by. He applauded them in acknowledgement, they cheered, and the moment was gone. The post-Mauricio Pochettino era was under way.

Accepting Mourinho, iconic former manager of hated rivals Chelsea, has not come easily to Tottenham's supporters. Walking away from the ground with a group of fellow Spurs fans after the game, Peter Daley, 55, confessed that he had found himself serenading the new manager in spite of himself.

"I personally didn't sing 'Mourinho,'" he began, only to immediately back up. "I lie. Because at the end, I couldn't help myself. Right at the very end. I didn't want to. But it felt like he made a difference. It looks as though the players have got a monkey off their backs."

Not all the visiting fans were prepared to turn the page so quickly. "I think Poch would have had the same result today," said 66-year-old John Jenkins. "I don't see Poch doing any worse." But in the main, it was with a spring in their step that Spurs' fans made the short walk from the ground to Pudding Lane Station, thoughts already turning to Tuesday's home game with Olympiakos in the Champions League.

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The mood had been much more circumspect in the hours that preceded the game. In the pubs around London's Liverpool Street Station, which sits in the crook of the dogleg on the journey that leads from Tottenham territory in the north to West Ham's stomping ground in the east, the pain of Pochettino's dismissal was still raw.

"I'm gutted. I felt sorry for him," said Craig Lucie, 45, who was having a pre-match drink with two friends at the Railway Tavern. "It was a shock. In a way, I'd hoped he'd be able to leave on his own terms and say, 'I've had enough. I've taken it as far as I can. I want to go.' But it felt sad."

Having turned Tottenham into Premier League title contenders and Champions League finalists despite operating on what amounted to a shoestring budget when compared to the means of their rivals, Pochettino was never going to want for sympathy. But amid the sadness at his departure, there was also a reluctant acceptance that the time had come for a new approach.

"I'm going to miss him," said Jason Church, setting a rum and Coke down on the table in front of him. "I hope he goes on to bigger and better things—they're talking about Bayern Munich—and I wish him all the best. But 14th in the league [before the weekend] and no trophies in five-and-a-half years...something had to change."

Sitting opposite, Matt George had arrived at the same unfortunate conclusion. "Pochettino was only averaging a point per game," he said. "That's relegation form. No away wins in 10 months—clubs our size shouldn't be taking 10 months to win an away game."

Discomfort owing to Mourinho's Chelsea connections was only heightened by fears about what effect his notoriously pragmatic tactical approach might have on Tottenham's traditionally free-flowing football, but on the other side of the pub, Arjan Bains tried to paint a more nuanced picture.

"I didn't want Mourinho, but when I woke up the next day and saw his interview, I felt a bit more upbeat and now I'm looking forward to it," said the 18-year-old Spurs fan from Colchester in Essex.

"If you look at where Mourinho's gone, he's always played a different style. At Man United and Chelsea, he played a lot of defensive football. That's why he's been given this reputation. But when he wants to turn it on, like at [Real] Madrid or other clubs, he's played attacking football. I think he'll look to adapt and utilise the players that he's got."

In The Merchant of Bishopsgate, a pub garlanded in Christmas decorations on the ground floor of Liverpool Street Station, David Woodrow summed up the predicament that had pushed Spurs into Mourinho's arms.

"Mourinho is a short-term fix, but wherever he's gone, he's always won things," said the 50-year-old from Hertfordshire. "Whether or not he's always brought the right attention is questionable, but in this instance, we just need someone to come in and get us back to where we were."

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Away games have not exactly been must-see fixtures for Spurs fans in recent months, but the arrival of a new manager had prompted an upsurge of optimism, with one supporter revealing that tickets for the trip to West Ham were "like gold dust". The opportunity to deepen the misery of an unloved local rival was another attraction, and the Tottenham fans in the ground were quick to delve into their repertoire of anti-West Ham chants, breezily reminding the locals that they had "sold their soul" when they left Upton Park for the former Olympic Stadium in 2016.

Son's 36th-minute opener, from Alli's pass, prompted songs in honour of both players, and when the South Korean forward crossed from the left for Lucas Moura to turn in Tottenham's second goal seven minutes later, the visiting section crowed, "2-0 in your cup final!" Then Kane scored, and it was all over bar the shouting.

The unexpected sound of Mourinho's name booming out from the away end indicated that the time for grieving is drawing to a close. The king is dead. Long live the king