The end of the Mauricio Pochettino era has hurt Tottenham and critics need to go easy in their judgements of new manager Jose Mourinho, according to former midfielder Gus Poyet.

Injuries to Harry Kane and Son Heung-min have particularly hurt the north Londoners, who have failed to win their last six games and got knocked out of the Champions League and FA Cup in the process. English football is currently on hiatus amid a coronavirus outbreak that is impacting almost the whole of European football.

Under Pochettino, Spurs built perhaps the best stadium and training ground in the country but at the end of his reign began to struggle for results leading to Mourinho coming in.

Upon Spurs’ return to action, Poyet thinks that Mourinho will continue to look to the transfer market and that his bad feelings are understandable in the current situation.

Mourinho has said that he doesn’t expect his side to be ‘the kings of the transfer market’ but in recent weeks he has also said that he wished it was the summer window already after a poor run of form.

“I think it is the end of an era, the end of a process,” Poyet told Goal. “At certain places, you can manage the process in a way by slowly changing. Sir Alex Ferguson was the master of that. He was always one step ahead of allowing important players to leave and then replace them.

“There are other places where you hang onto a team until the end and then you feel like you have to change everything. I think Tottenham is in that place at the moment. This defends every manager in the world, not only Jose Mourinho.

“When you have Kane and Son, you are one kind of manager than without them. On the training pitch, you remain the same guy, you train the same way, say the same words and try to convince the players in the same manner.

“Now, when you have a 20-plus goal striker you are better, when you don’t you are worse. People don’t accept that. If Harry Kane is there, the manager is good, when he isn’t the manager is bad. I think that’s very unfair.

“When you change the manager, something isn’t right. The problem is not always the manager but they change him because it is logical not to change 25 players. People expect him to do something magical and there is normally a change makes a reaction.

“The players normally like the change; then reality comes back on the players. It will be an important end of the season for Spurs but even more so in the market after. I think they have a plan.

“They had their finances and a clear plan under Pochettino to build a training ground and stadium, taking them to another level. Somehow they still did well without too many changes in their squad.

“The strategy took them to a higher level but now they need to focus on the sports side again. I wouldn’t be too critical. That’s football that you need to tweak it after a while.”

Tottenham, like other clubs, now await further decisions made by the UK Government, the FA and the Premier League about a return to action as the country tries to stop the spread of the highly infectious virus that currently has no vaccine.