It's the Premier League sacking season once again.

It's the Premier League sacking season once again.

Oh well. Here we go again. It's that time of the year. Just when a vast majority of Premier League managers thought their jobs were safe, it's time to dust down the P45, fire the bullet and order the next poor, unsuspecting boss out of the back gate or that door marked exit. You know the one we're talking about. We are now four months into the season and that rank smell of dissatisfaction drifting down the corridors of every Premier League club has now claimed its first victim.

Tottenham Hotspur, who are beginning to make a habit of doing these things on a frequent basis, today sacked a perfectly respectable and hugely gifted coach. Mauricio Pocchetino was today given his marching orders if only because Spurs seem to be struggling for the kind of form which at the end of last season took them to a Champions League Final against Liverpool. True, they were beaten on the night in Madrid but this season, after a brief upturn of form at the beginning of the season, their winning form has more or less completely deserted them and for Spurs this was patently unacceptable.

This could mark the start of the sacking season for those hard working managers who just want to get on with the simple business of running their football team without any interference from busybody, feverishly ambitious chairmen who think they know best but, in reality, are perhaps more of a hindrance than a help. Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is of course a fanatical and lifelong Spurs supporter but there must come a point in any chairman's life when patience runs out, losing becomes utterly distasteful and the moment of reckoning has to come.

For Pocchetino that time has arrived and after much deliberation, the Argentinian, for all of his positive thinking and vastly educated approach to the game, must be cursing the day when Liverpool kicked him in the teeth and destroyed his Champions League dream. Now Spurs find themselves in the kind of predicament they would never have thought possible at the start of the season. They had now settled into their new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, vast income streams and revenues were flowing into the club, the traditional Spurs crowd were hugely expectant and everything seemed tickety boo. Wine and roses, sweetness and light.

Then, after some encouraging results in their favour and a head of steam, it all went rather flat. Tottenham, rather like their London neighbours West Ham, have hit the proverbial brick wall and just before the international break they once again came unstuck at at Liverpool where the seemingly runaway Premier League leaders pinched a last gasp victory against the North Londoners.  Before then there was the plodding and pedestrian 1-1 draw at home to newly promoted Sheffield United, a match where Spurs looked as though they were playing in chains.

And so it came to pass that Spurs have appointed their new boss. Come in Jose Mourinho. Yes folks it's Jose Mourinho, the so called Special One, the anointed one, the one with magical powers, the great tactician, the man who once led Chelsea to two back to back Premier League titles. It's that man with an ego the size of the United States of America, the snarling, sneering demeanour of a grizzly bear who hasn't eaten for at least five minutes and a man obsessed with winning every single game if he can.

After a calamitous spell at Manchester United, where the United supporters quite literally hounded Mourinho out of the club, Spurs are about to get their very first look at a man who so readily attracts either contempt or boundless admiration depending on which side of the bed he decides to get up on. Today could be the start of a bright new adventure for Tottenham or a gruelling, horrific journey where everybody at Spurs either loses their temper or just warms to the charismatic aura that Mourinho seems to bring to every club he turns up at.

This is surely uncharted territory for Spurs because quite clearly Mourinho left Manchester United in a terrible mess, up in arms and with a playing personnel who were at the end of their tether. Paul Pogba became the first victim of Mourinho's short tempered irascibility. One minute Pogba had become United skipper and the next he was that vile villain who could do no right for the club. Now Pogba and Mourinho were at loggerheads, forever arguing and squabbling with each other. It was a recipe for disaster and after a poor sequence of results for United, Mourinho was on his way and back onto the football manager unemployment register.

It is hard to know what stage Mourinho has reached in his very high profile career. There is the vain, narcissistic man who quite obviously thinks he should be in charge of the world let alone a football club. There is the no nonsense, ruthless disciplinarian who doesn't care a jot. Then there is the furious, hysterically animated one who goes potty when things are going against him, the man whose blood boils over when the referee takes a disliking to him. There is the man who waves and gesticulates, rants and raves, wildly impassioned, disturbingly dangerous if his team are denied at least three penalties a match.

Throughout any match Mourinho becomes so ludicrously hyperactive and excitable that at times he seems to be reflecting the mood of the very supporters who pay to watch his teams. At Chelsea Mourinho became an angelic paragon of virtue, a saintly figure adored by the Shed at Chelsea and then the whole of Stamford Bridge. |Before the Portuguese arrived in West London Chelsea had only won a couple of FA Cups and were still waiting for their next League title trophy. Mourinho did oblige by guiding the Blues to a Premier League titles but then got bored with success.

Before he could declare himself the Special One again, complacency set in and then the rot. Chelsea turned into pampered prima donnas and the Mourinho magic had gone. That Russian oligarch and notoriously secretive, uncommunicative chairman Roman Abramovich had had enough of the manager's tears and tantrums and Mourinho was shown the door.

And so we come full circle to Jose Mourinho, the new Spurs manager. In recent years Spurs have embarked on a whirlwind tour of the global game in search of the one man who can finally provide them with that elusive Premier League title. They've all been there and done it. There was the mysterious Christian Gross who seemed to lose his way en route to Spurs headquarters. Club legends and superstars Glenn Hoddle and Ossie Ardilles have both had a go at this most taxing of assignments but one man must be looking down on the latest developments with a good deal of suspicion.

Bill Nicholson was the managerial wizard and genius who transformed the fortunes of Spurs overnight. In his first match at White Hart Lane, Nicholson saw his new team obliterate Everton 10-4. For well over the next decade or so Nicholson supervised a revolution at Spurs. In the era that gave us John White, Terry Dyson, Bobby Smith, Jimmy Greaves and Danny Blanchflower, Spurs blossomed with some of the smoothest and purest football the club had ever played. This would be almost organically followed by the 1970s where men such as Martin Chivers, Steve Perryman, Jimmy Neighbour, Martin Peters and John Pratt would also emerge with stout hearts and immense skill.

But Nicholson is the one who Mourinho must be acutely aware of at what seems a critical stage of the season. Nicholson always did things with a sense of style and sophistication. Nothing else would suffice for him. He believed that his players should always behave themselves with an uprightness and rectitude that should come naturally, an unswerving belief that if things were going well on the pitch then they should also be proper and correct off it. And that's the balancing act.

It remains to be seen whether the man from Portugal can either emulate or surpass the glory, glory days and years of Bill Nicholson. Should there be a repetition of some of the weird shenanigans that completely disfigured his time at Manchester United then Spurs may have to cause to regret their choice of new boss. This is not to suggest that Mourinho is on borrowed time as a manager but there is still something edgy and anarchic about him that would imply that something is not quite right about the Mourinho mindset. This may be the right time to change his ways and become especially good at Spurs. We can but hope. It's over to you Jose.