It would not have been possible, though, if Mourinho did not know Chelsea as well as he does. “It is not easy for another manager to find a player like Herrera to do that job,” he said. No other manager knows Chelsea as well as he does; that was the key in this instance. Even Antonio Conte, the Chelsea manager, said after the defeat on Sunday that it was Tottenham that ranked as “the best team” in the country at this point. This was a personal game, and a personal defeat, accompanied by a deeply personal pain.

Source: New York Times April 17, 2017 00:00 UTC