Jose Mourinho: Some fans are saying the wheels are coming off at Tottenham

Jose Mourinho in suitably pensive mood

Jose Mourinho seems to be skipping straight to the third act with Tottenham.

In 2018, a much-maligned Mourinho made a famous speech about the significance of the number three. His Manchester United side had just been beaten 3-0 by Tottenham - the heaviest home defeat in the Special One's career.

"I won more Premierships alone than the other 19 managers together," Mourinho said. "Three for me and two for them."

But there is another link between Mourinho and that number that he didn't mention - the Portuguese tends to last no more than three seasons at a club.

Whether you think his 'third-season syndrome' is a thing or a myth, he's only made it to a fourth campaign once - in his first spell with Chelsea.

When Spurs were knocked out of the Champions League by RB Leipzig, it looked to some as though he had fast-tracked things.

Spurs have now failed to win in their past six games and are seven points adrift of the top four in the Premier League.

From the outside, Mourinho has never really seemed like an arm-around-the-shoulder kind of manager, and there's usually at least one player who gets on his wrong side at some point - for Sergio Ramos, Luke Shaw and Paul Pogba, now read Tanguy Ndombele.

After Spurs' 1-1 draw with Burnley last week, Mourinho made a wafer-thinly veiled dig at Spurs' £54m record signing.

"I know the Premier League is difficult, and some players take a long time to adapt to a different league," he said, before absolving Oliver Skipp, Lucas Moura and Giovani lo Celso to make it abundantly clear to everyone who he meant by "some players".

Of course, not everyone is laying the blame at Jose's door.

After Tuesday's game, Mourinho bemoaned Tottenham's injury woes.

"You want me to speak about other things, when the obvious thing is the problems accumulate through injuries," he said.

It's worth remembering captain Harry Kane and midfielder Moussa Sissoko have not played since 1 January, while Son Heung-min is also sidelined and Steven Bergwijn could miss the rest of the season.

But midfielder Dele Alli wasn't toeing that party line after Tuesday's game.

"We can't use excuses, we still have quality on the pitch," he said. "We are missing good players but that happens. The players coming in have to step up and we haven't done that."

Of course, for all the Spurs fans who may be unhappy with Mourinho there are probably just as many who lay the blame elsewhere.

So, a lot of people unhappy with a lot of things.

When Mourinho had his hair shaved off earlier this year, people couldn't stop talking about it. Asked about the new look on Football Focus, his response was pretty sanguine.

"The barber did a bad job," he said. "I told him 'shave it' because now, I know, it will come. It will take a little longer, but it will come back to normality."

Maybe he takes the same attitude to this season for Spurs. Write it off. Get the number one razor out, shave it to the bone. Start again next season.

Or maybe we're just making a stupid analogy. Who knows?