Matt Doherty has confessed that he let Jose Mourinho down during their time together at Tottenham Hotspur. Signed in the summer of 2020 after a standout few seasons at Wolves, the addition of the Republic of Ireland international looked like it would solve Spurs' issues at right-back.
However, Doherty couldn't recapture his best form and instead found himself in and out of the team as he battled Serge Aurier for a starting position. Starting to get back to his best playing at right wing-back in Antonio Conte's system, Doherty has opened up on his switch to Tottenham and what Mourinho told him to convince him to swap Molineux for north London.
"Yeah, it’s easy to say that. That is a part of it also and it is part of the industry," said the right wing-back when asked by the Irish Independent about claims he left Wolves for Tottenham in order to earn more money. "If someone is here [Doherty places his hand at medium height], then they want to get to here [raising hand to a higher level]. But first of all, José [Mourinho] was the manager and it would’ve been silly to say no to him. And he really wanted me.
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"He told me that I was his number one choice to come in. He even said to me that if the chairman came to him and said that he could only have one signing in the summer, I was the only one he wanted. So who would say no to that?
"Spurs are a huge club, the training ground, the stadium, possibly fighting for Champions League football. I had run my course at Wolves. I wanted to try and leave that summer anyway, whether it was Tottenham or not. I had been there for so long and would have regretted staying any longer. Every player is different.
"Even when things were not going well, I still didn’t regret it. I was happy to make the step. It’s a bit of an ego thing also, isn’t it? You want to say that you’ve played for a top team. Tottenham choose 11 players every week, who are all top players, and you are one of those players. That gives you a good feeling.
"My dad didn’t love the move for me. He would probably have had me stay at Wolves, but how could I say no? I probably could’ve gone back to Wolves and said, ‘Give me a second contract’, but I didn’t want to do that. And I saw stuff saying about going back in the January window, but I didn’t want to do that either. I had a great time at Wolves, but I think if I went back … you should never really go back."
Amid claims that Mourinho was bad for Doherty's game, the Irishman has claimed that was in fact not the case and it was instead on him. Despite it not working out for both in the 2020/21 season, the Spurs player has labelled his former boss as a "great guy".
"I let him down. People think he was bad for me, but it was the other way around. He put a lot of faith in me and I didn’t really perform. I just didn’t play well, I just didn’t grasp it…I don’t know. I just wasn’t able to get going there at the start," he admitted.
"The shape was obviously different [from Wolves]. The difference was that, at Tottenham, they have so much ability going forward, with the players they have, that maybe I wasn’t necessarily needed to play high and create stuff. So my main job was maybe just to be a defender. But my game is about going forward.
"To be fair to Jose, they tried to play me high, but it wasn’t working for the team. We were leaving too much space. I just didn’t perform for him. He’s a great guy. I could sit here with him now and have dinner with him and have the best time ever. I spoke to him a few times about it, but I don’t know what it was. It’s a bit of a regret that I wasn’t able to perform like how he saw me in his head."
After such a disappointing first season at Tottenham, the appointment of his former Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo looked like it would really pay off for Doherty. However, minutes rarely came his way prior to the Portuguese boss losing his job at the start of November.
"I was a bit unfortunate with Nuno at the start because I picked up Covid in the middle of pre-season. I came back and we played Chelsea in pre-season and I was playing right-back. Then we were playing Arsenal on the Sunday. But because I had had Covid after the Chelsea game, I had to do a few extra runs because I had missed a lot of training and felt a little twinge in my hamstring," said the 30-year-old.
"On the Sunday against Arsenal, it was a case of just sit it out and [Japhet] Tanganga played and he played really well, so he started the first game of the season. So if I didn’t do those runs, I might have played the first game of the season and things might have been different.
"All of the managers I’ve had [at club level] have been so different. Nuno got the best out of me at Wolves and Antonio [Conte] has been getting the best out of me [at Spurs]. Maybe the common denominator is the formation. I seem to thrive a lot in the wing-back position. I’m not all about burning past people. It’s more about timing and using my brain to see spaces or gaps. So I think the shape of the team helps me to do what I do."
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