Mourinho tells Spurs to focus on league push

Jose Mourinho has said his Tottenham Hotspur players must put this month’s cup final to the back of their minds and focus on picking up points in the Premier League.

A 3-1 home defeat by Manchester United last weekend put a huge dent in Spurs’ hopes of finishing in the top four, and Friday’s clash with Everton assumes a critical role if they are to stay in the race.

The loss to United left Tottenham in seventh, six points behind fourth-placed West Ham United and only one point above Everton, who have a game in hand, in the race for European places ahead of the clash at Goodison Park.

“Of course, the Goodison match is very important. The distance between the two teams is very, very short. Of course, they have one match in hand,” Mourinho said on Thursday. “They have similar objectives to us. They are going to fight with us, and with other clubs, to try the best possible position, and see if we and them can get a European position.”

After the Everton game, Spurs host Southampton before the Wembley clash with Manchester City in the League Cup final when the London club will be trying to lift their first silverware since they won the trophy against Chelsea in 2008.

“Independent of the result at Goodison, and the result against Southampton, as you say, big nine days and the nine days are going to end with a cup final,” Mourinho, who was hired specifically to end the club’s trophy drought, said.

“We need to separate the waters. We need to say: the cup final is important, but is not the match tomorrow, we need to focus totally on a very difficult match.”

Mourinho has a virtually full-strength squad ahead of Friday with only full-backs Matt Doherty and Ben Davies unavailable.