LONDON’S Lo Celso: We need Mour time together
DAILY STAR SUNDAY, July 12, 2020
GIOVANI LO CELSO admits Tottenham’s stars are still getting to grips with Jose Mourinho’s ideas.
Mourinho was thrust straight into the action in November when he replaced Mauricio Pochettino. That’s never easy and some managers liken it to trying to fix a plane that’s in the air. The mini pre-season teams got post-lockdown at least gave the Portuguese time to work on the training ground with his players without the grind of a game every few days and a better opportunity to get his plans across. But midfielder Lo Celso, 24, knows the last three results prove there is still plenty of work to be done. Spurs lost 3-1 to Europa League rivals Sheffield United, beat Everton 1-0 and drew 0-0 at relegation-threatened Bournemouth – a run of results which hardly catapults them into today’s derby against bitter rivals Arsenal with confidence coursing through their veins. Argentine Lo Celso said: “Over these last few months we’ve tried to take on board the manager’s ideas as quickly as possible. In some games we’ve done this better than in others, but we’ve got four finals still to play to get ourselves into those European places.
“Each manager has their way of playing, their identity, their way of approaching games.
“It’s not just Jose Mourinho or Mauricio Pochettino, that goes for the majority of managers.
“They all view football in their own different ways.
“So, during the past few months, we’ve been working on what the coaching staff have asked of us, taking on board their playing style as quickly as possible and that’s what we’re working towards.
“We’ve got some really important and really tough games, so we need to finish up well.”
After the defeat by the Blades, Mourinho (above) tore into his players’ lack of fight and desire and, following the Everton game last Monday, he complained they would only win the Fair Play Cup.
Lo Celso added: “We spoke after the Sheffield game. We needed to show a different side of us against Everton and to get into the European places, we especially needed the win.
“The reaction of the team against Everton was good.
“We showed great intensity, we created chances at times, we were compact in defence and we needed a reaction after what happened.”
But Tottenham failed to build on the feelgood factor during last Thursday’s clash with the lowly Cherries and a goalless draw against a team which has struggled all season was widely derided. Lo Celso chose to stay positive, though, as he said: “At times we’ve needed to be much stronger as a team and in the last few games we’ve started to achieve this.
“In fact, we’ve not conceded in our last two games.
“So now we need to think about the game against Arsenal, which will be really tough and we need to win it to be up there.
“I was fortunate enough to get on for a few minutes at their place and now I’m looking forward to seeing how this game goes.”