Jose Mourinho didn’t need to respond to Paul Merson’s Harry Kane comments and defend his record with strikers in the build-up to this match.
We all know his history as a manager, and that only served in making him seem insecure and thin-skinned.
What Mourinho needed, more than anything, was for his team to respond on the pitch.
Whether it was pretty or not — and it largely wasn’t — they got the win that they desperately needed.