No, they're more spoiled because of culture.
The players are given the freedom to do whatever they want. Go to Roma and it's like Eton College. Go to Barcelona and it's like Cambridge University. The organizations are extremely lenient, players go out on weekdays and some even get smashed, on weekends they mostly end up in London to party and it's all about "the good life". In other places, it's football first.
There's also no pressure from the fans there. I had Samir Nasri, a Manchester City player at the time, next to me in a bar. People were pouring over to take pictures with him. Mostly Arsenal fans. The same Arsenal fans that allegedly "hated" him for the transfer. And that was barely 2 years after the move.
Our Kolarov could not go out in freaking Rome after joining Roma, only specific neighborhoods. If Lazio fans caught him somewhere, it'd be trouble for him. That may be or sound very toxic, but it's a harsh reality for football players in some places. And it's an exaggerated example as well. You can see Inter players with Milan players hanging out, but you're not going to see that shit on a weekday or the day after a derby or before a game. In England, that's a rather common sight.
I've worked with a lot of people around football back when I was there, I've seen things that surprised me a lot, as this mentality felt foreign to me and it also felt awkward in general and it showed a lack of competitiveness. A player once admitted to me that he only moved to a shit PL club (he didn't say shit PL club, but it was a given due to location) because he wanted to absolve the pressure from himself and focus on getting ready for the World Cup (ironically, they didn't qualify). Not gonna say who he is, it's irrelevant anyway. But he was playing in Italy at one point as well as in 2 other league by that time. It's also a smoother workplace. Less training, less focus on shit, it's less like a school. You play for Conte, you have to memorize shit and he tests you... Half these people barely passed high school, they're not interested in learning shit
The money actually is not that much better but in the bigger picture they do earn more. You will find most clubs able to afford at least 2 rather large contracts (2m net per annum) but the majority of the rest of their players won't be getting paid better than the Sampdoria or Udinese players, but you won't find Crotone type of contracts there probably. Players at top clubs aren't extremely well paid either. Lukaku was one of the best PL players, moved to Manchester United and didn't really earn that much. We almost doubled his salary here! Manchester City does not pay extravagantly, they only have 3-4 players on a very high salary, the rest of the squad is perhaps comparable to ours, with the exception that they have an additional 2-3 players on higher wages than us, which puts them at an advantage overall of course. But it's not as if Man City players are earning big money right away. Their transfer policy is not to buy the best players, because they cannot. Who the fuck wants to play for Manchester City? They were overpaying the likes of Aguero, Toure, Jovetic, Dzeko, Balotelli etc when they started to create a core squad and become an instant hit, but their transfer policy is mostly to buy young tier 2 stars that have potential. De Bruyne was such, Bernardo Silva another one, Ruben Dias and Ederson also etc. These guys weren't extremely well paid, so a slight bump and a promise to be important players for the club is enough to attract them.
I'd say that both Liverpool and Manchester City know how to attract talent that's also serious about football. On the other hand, there's Manchester United which was like a trash can of obscene personalities and whomever didn't like the climate, he felt alienated. Someone like Juan Mata and Alexis Sanchez for example fit this description.
You're talking about Mourinho and a top 4 finish (which was actually within 3 points until this week) and it's true. His team should be there. But there's a reason it is not. It's not because Mourinho is "outdated" or whatever. We saw the team click under Mourinho and even the anti-Mourinho media was afraid that he was actually going to pull it off. The problem is why they unclicked. I think a main reason is that the players cannot handle Mourinho, rather than the other way around. Hopefully they have another Amazon documentary so we can see this first hand. What I mean is, after results were going their way and Mourinho tried to convince these guys that they were champion caliber, it got to their heads: "we are the best, we're managed by the best". First hiccup and boom. Collapse. Then you have the team captain complain that his teammates do not listen to the coach and you know that he's said the same thing when Pochettino was on the way out.
If Mourinho is allowed to convert the team into what he wants, I'm pretty confident that he'll be challenging for the league. But with the existing core, it's virtually impossible.
You see the roster from a fan perspective or even a video game player. It feels sexy. Kane, Bale, Son, Lo Celso, Lamela, Lucas Moura, Ndombele, Reguilln, Lloris, Bergwijn, Vinicius, Hojberg, Alderweireld, Sanchez, Alli, plus a few more... that looks like a very nice squad.
But these are a person each, not just a number or a character on your screen. You discount that Alli is a moron that doesn't listen to anyone. You discount that Bale barely cares about football. You discount that you have guys like Sissoko exert a lot of influence in the locker room. They also lost a locker room leader in Vertonghen and it's either vacant now or a new incompetent person has more influence there. Someone like Kane doesn't care enough about becoming a leader, Lloris cannot find allies. There was the Danny Rose case where he rebelled and he had friends in the team that didn't like how he was treated. It's a mess. You could say that a coach's job is to unite the players, but these aren't the players he wanted, these are the players he found there. Sure, he knew that, but he also had Eriksen and Vertonghen when he joined that wanted to leave and I'm pretty sure it's better to have Vertonghen around than a kid like Joe Rodon.
At Manchester United, Mourinho had everything under control while Zlatan was around. When he got injured, shit hit the fan. At Tottenham, Lloris was supposed to be that guy for him. At Real Madrid, he had multiple guys like that, just like at Inter. At Chelsea, he had Terry, Drogba and Lampard.
Conte at Inter has Vidal, Lukaku and Kolarov for example now. It's important to have the backing of veterans and important players. It makes it easier to control the locker room. Spalletti for example lost it because he only had Nainggolan who was sidelined by the management. Perisic for example wasn't really in favor of Spalletti, more like the other way around. Perisic would have played for any coach. But there was an anti-manager block and Perisic wasn't in it. It's not easy managing a team when half the players want to get rid of you, whether they're right or not. With Mourinho this has happened three times already in the past decade in England. Chelsea, 2nd season. Manchester United, final 15 months. Tottenham, last few months. It's easier to blame the coach and he's the most expendable. But Tottenham needs to decide what they're going to do here.
Conte had the luxury to have Marotta clear house before he arrived. Mourinho took over right after Pochettino left and the players expected to find someone who would pamper them. Mourinho was never going to be that guy. You can hire Pioli if you want that. Or Ranieri.
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