“When we felt weakness, we went for the jugular,” he told us after we put Manchester United to the sword in the Premier League.
Trailing inside two minutes to a Bruno Fernandes penalty, we responded in style. We were back on terms two minutes later with Tanguy Ndombele’s blaster, Heung-Min Son latched onto Harry Kane’s quickly taken free-kick to finish brilliantly for 2-1 soon after and we missed a host of chances on the break before Anthony Martial got himself sent off, and we took over.
Harry Kane slotted for 3-1 and Sonny got his angles right for another exquisite finish to make it 4-1 and even then, we had two more chances before half-time. Serge Aurier scored the goal his performance deserved for 5-1 at the start of the second half and Harry capped it with the sixth from the penalty spot.
“It was an amazing performance,” said Jose. “I can imagine some anti-Spurs people will say it was 11 against 10 for the second half, but I have to say we were so much better than them for the whole of the first half, 11 against 11, lots of confidence in the team, losing 1-0 to a silly penalty, no problem.
“The team just played, played, played, reacted, kept playing, playing, playing and when we felt weakness, we went for the jugular, and you don’t do that if you are not an ultra-confident team.
“So, an amazing performance, an historic result and very important three points, because with these three points, we go up in the table.”
The clinical nature of that first half was put to Jose, who replied: “We missed lots of chances! If it was clinical, clinical, clinical, it would be an even bigger result.
“But, yes, especially in the first half, the team was so aggressive, and after 2-1, we were aggressive and confident, with big personality.
“This was a victory of the squad, of the structure of the Club, not the team, not the 11 guys plus the three who came on (from the bench).
“The squad is very good, that’s why we won these matches, rotating players, bringing in fresh legs… and then Lo Celso injured, Bergwijn injured, Bale working… look at the squad we have, look at the attacking players we have, plus Vinicius in the stand. It was an amazing performance. I’m very proud of everyone at the Club.”
