West Ham United manager Manuel Pellegrini before the Premier League match with Aston Villa at Villa Park in Birmingham September 16, 2019. — Reuters pic
LONDON, Nov 21 — West Ham United manager Manuel Pellegrini believes the arrival of Jose Mourinho as Tottenham Hotspur’s new boss will have no immediate impact on the club’s style of play although the Portuguese could eventually leave his mark on the team.
Pellegrini’s side host Spurs on Saturday, a few days after the North London club sacked Mauricio Pochettino with the team 14th in the Premier League and replaced him with Mourinho.
“Mourinho is just in charge of the team for two days so I don’t think he can change too much, they’ll play in a similar way,” Pellegrini told reporters.
Mourinho took over from the sacked Pellegrini as Real Madrid manager in 2010 but the Chilean said he had no hard feelings towards him and was only focused on arresting his own team’s slide down the table.
West Ham, who are 16th, have not won a league match since beating Mourinho’s former side Manchester United in September and are looking to end a run of two straight league defeats.
“He’s not my friend but not my enemy either. Maybe I think a different way, but he’s not my enemy. Everyone has their options to play football the way they want,” Pellegrini added.
“Tottenham has a very good team with important players. You cannot know what has happened there but the results were not what they are used to having.
“That’s not an important problem for us to solve, we must give a good performance as a team... the league this year is tight... we must try to recover.” — Reuters
