Knives out for Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho after the end of his nine-year unbeaten home league record

For as Real Madrid’s whitest cheerleading organ, Marca, pronounced like some gloomy official proclamation on its front page “Adios Liga. Adios record”, the mounting feeling here was that it may yet end up being a mere prelude to “Adios Jose”.

At a club where they have always been happy to turn the most minor drama into a crisis, you could swear you could hear the sound of knives being sharpened, perhaps ready to be plunged into Jose Mourinho’s aura like never before following both the end of the Special One’s nine-year, 150-game unbeaten league home run and, surely, of his interest in claiming his seventh national league title in eight years.

Suddenly, Real’s six, maybe seven, games in April loom as the greatest examination yet of a gilded career of practically uninterrupted success. All the talk here has been of Mourinho’s future, of his hints of returning to England and of him winning power battles with sporting director Jorge Valdano, but if he succumbs in these huge games, including possibly four against Barcelona in 15 days, his future will be written for him regardless.

His studied air of insouciance after the 1-0 defeat to Sporting Gijón here could not hide his dismay, doubtless cemented in private later by watching Barcelona’s giddy lads celebrating the win at Villarreal which puts them eight points clear and practically certain to bag a third straight title.

Mourinho talked about his side being unlucky but, inside, must have been as alarmed as those Bernabéu regulars who felt this weakened side bereft of creative juices and a cutting edge - the ingredients known primarily as Cristiano Ronaldo - had just produced their worst performance of the season.

It was so poor that even if bringing back Ronaldo with his thigh problem on Tuesday is a gamble, it actually looks like a must. “The decision of risking it belongs only to him and to me. I may risk it,” said Mourinho.

Bank on it; it is an SOS to Ronaldo which may spell Save Our Season.

Mourinho did accept his fate with some dignity as he went to the visitors’ dressing room to offer congratulations and even saluted Gijon’s coach, Manuel Preciado, who earlier in the season, in a verbal bust up, had dismissed Mourinho as a canalla. The best translation of that, apparently, is 'scumbag’ and a reminder of how there will be many here now revelling in Mourinho’s discomfort.

And how Spurs must now grasp the chance to add to it. Madrid tomorrow will be bolstered by the return of Xabi Alonso, suspended on Saturday, and Gonzalo Higuain, who feels sharper after playing his first half an hour in four months since his back surgery, but the side will not look too dissimilar to that which against Gijón laboured miserably up front and were absent-minded at the back. Alvaro Arbeloa, for one, had a woeful night.

All of which can only have encouraged Spurs, who, even while having their own goalless streak to be concerned about, were talking up their prospects of an upset even before news of Gijon’s late smash and grab.

“We’ve got a tough, tough task, but we’ve proved this year against top teams like Inter and AC Milan that we’ve been able to go to these places and get results. Hopefully we can do the same in Madrid,” Peter Crouch had said after the goalless draw with Wigan.

Being reminded of how Mourinho’s old Chelsea favourite, Ricardo Carvalho, once suggested Crouch was easy to play against was a perfect red rag. “We’ll see about that,” responded the striker.

“As for Mourinho, he’s top class. His results from Porto to Chelsea to Inter Milan and now Real. We all have a great deal of respect for him. So we go there with respect but also to get a result.”

A final word of respect, too, for that record. To go 150 home league games with various clubs without a single loss should be recalled as one of football’s most unfathomable achievements, perhaps an unrepeatable feat.

The man himself always sniffed that “it means nothing to me”, that only winning trophies continues to concern him. Maybe, but another protective layer of his aura was stripped here, enough for Spurs to be persuaded the Great Wall of Mourinho may just have developed a major structural fault.