Tottenham Hotspur’s boss said, “My future choices will be easy.” A visibly upset Spurs manager has come down heavily on his squad after the defeat against Royal Antwerp in Europa League.
Jose Mourinho ripped into his fringe players for not taking their chances in Antwerp, saying he will now have “easy choices” when selecting his first team.
Mourinho made nine changes from the win at Burnley in Thursday’s Europa League Group J game. He expected that some of his fringe players would stake a claim and perform up to his expectation. However, that did not happen.
An insipid show by the players piqued Mourinho and compelled him to make four changes at half-time, with Dele Alli, Steven Bergwijn, Carlos Vinicius and Giovani Lo Celso all hooked in the 1-0 defeat.
Dele, who has played just three games for Spurs in all competitions this season has been substituted at half-time in two of them.
However, when asked what he thought of Dele’s performance, Mourinho refused to put the entire blame on him and said “I don’t want to analyze individually.” He maintained that the performance of the collective told its own story and that it should be obvious to onlookers what is his best team.
“It’s fair to say that players with bad performances influence the team but also a team influences individual performances. It’s not for me to individualize and bring some names to the table. You can do that yourself. You always tell me ‘why is this player not playing, why is this player not playing’ – maybe you don’t ask me that for a few weeks as you have the answer.
