While their relationship ended abruptly on Monday with news of his firing, the truth is that Tottenham's alliance with Jose Mourinho was a transactional relationship from day one.
Spurs are run on a day-to-day basis by chairman Daniel Levy, one of the shrewdest and sharpest administrators in football. Mourinho may have fooled some by reviving his Instagram account and generally employing softer rhetoric in press conferences, but he remains the same combative and confrontational figure he has always been.
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These two men were consequently on a collision course from the moment they shook hands at Mourinho's unveiling in November 2019, though that's not to say it didn't make a degree of sense.