Jose Mourinho has described his Tottenham squad as a "gift" and said he will not need to sign new players in the January transfer window.

Mourinho, speaking at his first news conference since replacing the sacked Mauricio Pochettino as Spurs manager on Wednesday, will start his reign in charge with a trip to West Ham on Saturday aiming to kick-start the club's season following just three wins in 12 Premier League games so far.

But despite inheriting a team that is sitting in the bottom half of the table, Mourinho insisted that the squad which reached last season's Champions League final is much stronger than its league position suggests.

And as a result, he will not be asking chairman Daniel Levy for reinforcements when the transfer window opens.

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"For players, the best gift is the ones that are here," Mourinho said.

"I don't need players, I am so happy with the ones I have. But I need to get to know them. I know them well from playing against them, but you never know them well enough until you work with them.

"But my gift is this squad. It is a very, very good squad. I am not here to make dramatic changes, just follow my ideas in the progressive way."

Mourinho, who was sacked by Manchester United last December, claimed that he had tried and failed to sign a number of Spurs players while at previous clubs.

"One of the reason I came was because of them [the players]," he said.

"I tried to buy some for previous clubs. Some I didn't even try because it would be so difficult to think about that. But I am really, really happy with the players here and I don't want to make big changes.

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"I want to respect the base which they did for five years. Our work for two days, we hope it is a plus, an update, not a change.

"But this is not about me coming here and say everything was wrong with Pochettino. Not at all. I just want to understand why results in the last year in the league have not been strong."