If Jose Mourinho’s in-match performance was his usual artful theater, his post-match turn had the whiff of a whodunit mystery with some B-movie conspiracy theory waffle thrown in for good measure.

Despite his side conceding five goals at White Hart Lane (one win in nine league games for Chelsea now at so-called Three Point Lane), Mourinho chose to focus on the non-award of a penalty for a handball by Jan Vertonghen in the first half as the main reason for his team’s collapse.

In the interviews I watched, Jose said

We had the biggest opportunity to score the second goal which is a shot from the penalty spot.

I honestly had no idea which incident he was referring to until I dug further in to online commentary. This was the straw that Mourinho was clinging to – a clearly accidental handball by a falling defender -ball-to-hand, as Jose himself would no doubt be quick to highlight should, say, Gary Cahill been the victim of the same circumstance.

Jose also bemoaned the “honest” Eden Hazard who fell to ground after a tackle from Federico Fazio on the edge of the Tottenham box.

He’s a very honest guy in the way he plays but that’s another problem.

Based on his sideline histrionics, Jose clearly saw this incident as a foul. Hazard? Not so much. He immediately got to his feet after the tackle with no appeal to the referee. The Chelsea manager admitted that Hazard confirmed it was not a foul.

So that is good, in spite the fact Mr Dowd was too slow to follow that ball. He was 40 yards away but made the right decision. The decision in the first half, he was 10m away he couldn’t make.

When confronted with the evidence that Gary Cahill had, unprovoked, kicked the prone Harry Kane in the back while on the ground, Mourinho’s response was one of pure deflection.

I didn’t see that. But it was like the back – not like Sterling in the face?

It continues the “conspiracy” narrative that Mourinho started in the last week, his not-so-subtle attempt to pressure officials in to giving his players the benefit of the doubt in future games.

Even when he’s not accusing the officials of cheating him and his team, he’s extremely ungracious in defeat.

I hate to lose, of course, but I prefer to lose like I did against Newcastle with a clean performance by (referee Martin) Atkinson, an unlucky performance by us, a lucky performance by Newcastle. But a game you lose because of football.

And there’s not really anything wrong with that outside of it just making you an arsehole.

Mourinho is a great manager. He’s proven that time and again. But is he a great manager because he’s an arsehole or a great manager who happens to be an arsehole?