Jose Mourinho said no team in the world would be able to cope with the number of injuries to key players Tottenham have suffered.
Without goal scorers Harry Kane, Heung-min Son and Steven Bergwijn sidelined and the presence of Moussa Sissoko in the middle, Spurs crashed out of the Champions League with a 4-0 aggregate loss to RB Leipzig in the round-of-16.
Tottenham crashed out the Champions League at the round-of-16 stage
Defeat to the Bundesliga side meant Tottenham’s last remaining hope of winning silverware this season has gone thanks to Marcel Sabitzer’s two goals and one from Emil Forsberg.
“It looks like the obvious is that the problems accumulate with the accumulation of injuries,” the manager said afterwards.
“If you want to make an exercise and imagine Leipzig tonight without Sabitzer, [Patrik] Schick, [Timo] Werner, do you think they would win the way they did?
“You go to the European champions and make an exercise? Liverpool without [Mohamed] Salah, [Sadio] Mane, [Jordan] Henderson, [Roberto] Firmino.
“You want to go to Spain and do Barcelona without [Antoine] Griezmann, [Lionel] Messi, [Luis] Suarez.
“Do you want to make this exercise with every team in the world?”
AFP PHOTO
Top scoring Kane is hoping to be back in action for Spurs before the end of the season and recently returned to training
Tottenham, seven points behind fourth place Chelsea, must play Manchester United next and Mourinho recognises the huge task he faces in guiding Spurs back into the Champions League, a competition in which they reached the final last season.
“With the squad we have at the moment it’s going to be very, very difficult,” he added.
“These problems are not going to disappear from today to tomorrow.
“But we have matches to play, matches to fight in. You can see in our matches in the Premier League that we fight until the end.
“In the Premier League we don’t have results where we had no chances to fight for the points.
“When we lost matches, we lost matches 2-1, 3-2, 1-0. We had draws so it’s not like we don’t fight.
“So we will fight and the players have to be very strong to fight with the limitations we have.
Getty Images – Getty
Mourinho faces one of his biggest challenges as manager due to the number of injuries to key players
“This time we are not going to recover any players for next Sunday. At least we have a little period, not just two days like we have all the time, we have four days in between.”
As Tottenham manager, Mourinho has lost all three of his league games against sides he’s formerly managed – one against Man United, two against Chelsea. In his previous 16 league games against his former clubs in Portugal and England, he only lost twice, winning nine and drawing five.
However, Tottenham lost their last home league 3-2 to Wolves and the last time they lost successive home league matches was in January 2019, with those defeats coming against Wolves and Man United.
Speaking to talkSPORT, former Premier League striker Kevin Phillips believes Mourinho still has what it takes to deliver and it is too early to start pointing the finger.
“He’s not daft. He’s an experienced and world class manager, so let’s judge him after the summer transfer window, just after the summer transfer window – just like we did with [Ole Gunnar] Solskjaer and we are starting to see his signings bear fruit.
“Give Jose the summer.”
Daniel Levy ‘sold Tottenham fans a dream and delivered a nightmare’, according to one fan on talkSPORT
It is Mourinho’s boss, though, who has angered one Tottenham fan, who raged to talkSPORT Daniel Levy has turned the club into a ‘cash cow’.
“The sold us the dream with the new stadium and they’ve delivered us an absolute nightmare,” White Hart Lane regular Danny said, adding
“They let Pochettino down, they’ve let fans down. There’s been big neglect for the football side of the club.
“As a season ticket holder I got an email from Spurs’ official channels during the Burnley game [a disappointing 1-1 draw at Turf Moor] offering me priority tickets for a Lady Gaga concert and the Capital Summertime Ball at the new White Hart Lane.
“They’ve turned us into a cash cow, just money after money after money to not invest!”
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