Tottenham boss, Jose Mourinho has launched an extraordinary rant after his team fell to a 1-0 loss to RB Leipzig in the Champions League on Wednesday night.
Timo Werner’s second half penalty was the difference between both sides even though Leipzig enjoyed the greater share of possession and out played Tottenham for majority of the match but Mourinho has staunchly defended his players in an extraordinary four-minute rant with BT Sport’s Des Kelly.
When questioned whether he saw the ‘real Spurs’ in the final 20 minutes of the contest, Mourinho said: ‘Come on, what do you mean by the real Spurs? Come on. Come on.
‘Let’s be loyal to the boys and tell that they did everything they could do,’
Des Kelly: ‘Not unless you tell me.’
Jose Mourinho (JM): ‘Zero. Direct from injury to recovering on the pitch with the physios, direct to 20 minutes of a game of the Champions League. That is our team. You can look at it and you see the two perspectives. One perspective is an amazing group with amazing guys that try everything. By another side you see how we are in this moment. You look to the other guys, they play with Schick, with Werner, with Nkuku. Nkuku is tired? Get out, comes Forsberg. Schick is tired? Come out, comes Poulsen. This is our situation. It’s like going to a fight with a gun without bullets.
‘So we did what we can do and I think if we score before them, the game would be different. You can tell me we had luck in some moments, I disagree. We had a great goalkeeper, that made two magnificent saves. That is not luck, that is an amazing goalkeeper. Their goalkeeper also made a couple of fantastic saves. We had our chances, and we tried everything we could. I thank the fans for their support to the boys.
‘What I am worried with is not the 1-0, because the 1-0 is an open result. 1-0 we can perfectly go there and win the tie. What worries me is that these are our players for the next I don’t know how many matches. We have to play in two days again. We could see Lucas absolutely dead, Bergwijn absolutely dead, Lo Celso dead. So we can look at it in the two perspectives.
‘One perspective is that I am so proud of them and they did absolutely fantastic. Another perspective is, that’s our situation… we are really in trouble. If this was for this game I would say “okay no problem, 1-0 everything is open”, what worries me is that we have Premier League and FA Cup to play too. And this is our situation.’
DK: ‘I understand what you’re saying and you’re defending your players and quite right. My point was when you changed the shape, when you made the substitutions…’
JM: ‘I didn’t change the shape, I play exactly with the same shape, I change the pieces. I saw that with Bergwijn and Lucas both up instead of Dele Alli we could have a dynamic we didn’t have before. I knew that Lamela could give us only 15, 20 minutes, and even so a question mark. I also knew that Ndombele could not play for 90 minutes and much more than what he did also very difficult to do.
‘I tried to manage the pieces that we had. Don’t tell me that Lamela and Ndombele should start the game because they could not start the game. So these guys… fantastic. I cannot be happier to have guys like them with the limitations we have, but here we go and Chelsea drinking sparkling water with lemon watching the game on TV and Saturday morning, thank you very much for the choice Saturday morning we are there again.’
DK: ‘I’ll see you then.’
JM: ‘Bye.’
Mourinho now has two days to prepare his players for their visit to Stamford Bridge where Spurs take on Chelsea
"It's like to go to a fight with a gun without bullets. We did all we could do."
Jose Mourinho on Tottenham's display this evening and injuries amongst the squad…
🎤 @DesKellyBTS pic.twitter.com/o5rkdMFFDt
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) February 19, 2020
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