Premier League sack race odds: Jose Mourinho odds cut to leave Tottenham after opening day defeat to Everton

Jose Mourinho’s odds of being the first Premier League manager to leave took a tumble after Tottenham’s limp display against Everton, coupled with their manager’s list of excuses after the final whistle.

Mourinho has had a pattern over recent years of things going south at his clubs after around the third season mark, but after just one game of his first full season at Spurs the vultures are already circling.

West Ham boss David Moyes still heads the betting as the 2/1 favourite, with his odds also shortening after the Hammers lost 2-0 to Newcastle on Saturday evening.

That game at the London Stadium was supposed to be West Ham’s big chance to get off the mark with three points as they have a brutal run of fixtures coming up.

Moyes’ situation is the only thing stopping Mourinho from being the sack race favourite, as his odds have been cut to 8/1 second favourite after defeat to Everton.

Mourinho had been as big as 20/1 before the Everton game, but his odds have shortened after the way his team folded against the Toffees.

First Premier League manager to go odds

• Moyes - 2/1
• Mourinho - 8/1
• Parker - 8/1
• Hodgson - 9/1
• Smith - 12/1
• Bilic - 14/1

Click here for the full current Sky Bet market

While an opening day loss to Everton can be excused, the manner of the performance has set alarm bells ringing among Spurs fans, with the team looking listless and lethargic throughout.

Mourinho was quick to blame the bizarre circumstances surrounding pre-season this year for his team being under cooked – with international duty, positive Covid-19 tests and quarantines all being put forward as reasons for Spurs’ performance.

“Harry Kane trained with us once,” he said. “Moussa Sissoko, a couple and I am not going player by player. For different reasons many of our players didn’t have proper pre-seasons.

“We had cases of positive Covid, we have the right not to say which players, but we had players, we had other players in quarantine due to proximity with positive players.

“We had a player in quarantine because he was on holiday in a country which the government quarantined, we had national teams where many of them went to their team so it was a difficult pre-season.

“I couldn’t expect them to be sharp, intense, agile. But I was expecting much more individually and collectively.

“It disappoints me, and that is where I have now to work. The players who didn’t have pre-season, we don’t have now the possibility to give them a pre-season but we have a lot of matches now to play consecutively and we have to use these matches, not just to win them and the knockout ones are obviously decisive ones with everything decided in 120 minutes or even penalties, and try to use this to improve the form of some players because some of them were really in trouble.”

Odds correct at 0757 BST on 14/9/20