Exactly my thoughts. When the squad is less than ideal, Jose always says “we will go out to win every single game, then we will look where we end up in the table”. And for every single game, Jose demands 100%. And as long as the players give that, he is content. He defended Lukaku when he was missing sitters at Man Utd, he defended Ibańez at Roma when he was making blunders that even lead to 2 losses against Lazio, of all teams. This strategy helps Jose’s teams over-perform for a while. Seeing the team over-perform, the “genius” boards stop spending, and even some players get over-confident (i.e. Pellegrini). However, this strategy is not sustainable without proper reinforcements, because players give that performance by overclocking themselves. Like any human being, you can perform over your capacities for certain period of time, under pressure, with high concentration. But that is not your “default” level, that’s compressed energy. You have 6/10 accuracy, and you happen to hit 5 or 6 in a row. On a long enough timeline, you will burn out and your “stored/unspent” misses will arrive. I think this was what kept happening at Utd, Spurs, and Roma. And Jose’s aforementioned approach is way different than the so-called modern managers’ “this is a process, sh*t happens, we are playing 50 friendlies this season”. That mindset is how eventually, getting worse and worse in their trajectory, Man Utd ended up at the 15th place while breaking all the wrong records, and how Spurs ended at the 17th twice in a row battling relegation. Because even when you are not a contender, not demanding 100% is a damn slippery slope. In that mind space, players understand that neither results NOR performances are important. And they begin caring less and less. You can run less in this game because winning doesn’t matter, you can throw that game because the season is always for transition etc etc. Then the whole team gets infected by that. In the end, even after spending 500+ million more than Jose, you end up at 15th, 16th, 17th.