Playing like Xhaka & Rodri: Spurs must rue selling special Mourinho signing
da prosport bet： Such has been the amount of change in recent seasons that it feels like a lifetime ago that José Mourinho was in the hot seat at Tottenham Hotspur.
da fazobetai： The Special One was appointed the club’s manager in November 2019, mere days after the sacking of Mauricio Pochettino, and to say English football was shocked would be an understatement.
However, less than two years later – just before the League Cup final – the legendary coach was sacked, with little to show for his time in N17.
That said, he did make several additions to the team, including one international just sold by the club who has won comparisons to Granit Xhaka and Rodri.
Mourinho's lacklustre Spurs signings
Before we get to the player in question, it’s worth looking at a couple of the other signings made by Mourinho during his time with Spurs, although the unfortunate reality is that most of them didn’t work out.
For example, he was in the dugout when the club spent around £27m on PSV Eindhoven star Steven Bergwijn.
The Dutch winger could, at times, be incredibly exciting to watch and was responsible for one of the best Premier League comebacks in recent seasons, but he ultimately failed to make any real impact in N17.
Fortunately, when he did leave for Ajax in 2022 with a paltry tally of eight goals and eight assists in 83 games for the club, he did so for around £26.4m, almost covering the fee the Lilywhites paid.
Another of the Portuguese manager’s failed additions was Irish right-back Matt Doherty, who joined the club from Wolverhampton Wanderers in the summer of 2020 for a fee of around £14.7m.
While the defender impressed for the Old Gold, he could never quite get to grips with life at Spurs.
Over the next two and a half seasons, he registered just eight assists and three goals in 71 games for the club before his contract was terminated by mutual consent in January 2023.
With all that said, not every signing made by Mourihno at Spurs was a disaster, with one player at least establishing himself in the team for seasons to come, a player who’s been compared to Xhaka and Rodri this year.
The ex-Spurs ace playing like Rodri and Xhaka
With so many of Mourinho’s additions failing to carve out a place for themselves in the Spurs lineup for any considerable period, it should come as no surprise that the player in question is Pierre-Emile Højbjerg.
The Danish international joined the North Londoners from Southampton for around £15m in August 2020, and while he certainly wasn’t the flashiest, or even most popular, of players at the club, he was a regular face in the starting lineup for four years or so.
Across those four campaigns, the “excellent” midfielder, as dubbed by Ange Postecoglou, made 184 appearances for the first team, in which he scored ten goals and provided 16 assists.
However, following Postecoglou’s first campaign as manager, it was decided that the former Saints ace would be sold to Marseille, moving on an initial loan move with an obligation to buy at £17m.
Given the specific way the Australian wants his teams to play, it would be fair to say that this was a move that suited all parties.
Højbjerg & Rodri & Xhaka
Statistics per 90
Højbjerg
Rodri
Xhaka
Non-Penalty Expected G+As
0.25
0.24
0.20
Progressive Passes Received
1.62
1.68
2.11
Goals per Shot
0.07
0.13
0.13
Expected Assists
0.16
0.19
0.16
Clearances
1.27
1.23
1.31
Blocks
1.14
0.99
1.01
All Stats via FBref for the 23/24 + 24/25 League Season
Nevertheless, since joining the French giants, the 29-year-old has been immense and won comparisons to Bayer Leverkusen’s Bundesliga-winning star Xhaka and Ballon d’Or-winning Rodri.
The comparisons stem from FBref, which looks at players in similar positions in Europe’s top five leagues, the Champions League and the Europa League; then creates a list of the ten most comparable players for each one, and in this instance, has concluded that the Spaniard is the fourth most similar midfielder to the Dane, while the Swiss international comes in at seventh on the list.
The best way to see where this comparison has come from is to look at the underlying metrics in which the trio rank closely in both this season for Xhaka and Højbjerg while also including last season for Rodri due to his injury.
When doing this, we can see that all three have similar underlying numbers for important metrics, including but not limited to, non-penalty expected goals plus assists, goals per shot, expected assists, clearances, blocks and more, all per 90.
Ultimately, agreeing to sell Højbjerg in the summer was probably the right decision for everyone, but with the power of hindsight, we can’t help but think his presence in the middle would have helped Spurs pick up a few more points this season.
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