INHUMAN!
Jose blasts ‘impossible’ Spurs schedule
THE new season is yet to start and Jose Mourinho is already fuming about a schedule that could see Tottenham play nine games in the first 22 days.
Mourinho demanded to know who devised the plan — which he dismissed as ‘not human’ — and threatened to send his youth team out in the Carabao Cup.
‘If I think too much about it I will get depressed,’ the Spurs boss said. ‘I want to go into every match with a smile, but I asked my boys which of them thinks they can play all these nine matches for 90 minutes and nobody told me, “I can”.
‘So we all are very, very aware that it is impossible to do it. It is not human. In the end, we end up asking who are the illuminated people making these decisions? I would like to know because in this moment they hide.
‘Who makes a team play Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, Tuesday again, Thursday again, Sunday again? Do they want us to play with the youth team in the Carabao Cup? Do they? That’s my question.’
Tottenham’s Premier League campaign kicks off at home against Everton tomorrow before they travel to Bulgaria to tackle Lokomotiv Plovdiv in a Europa League qualifier on Thursday and then return for the trip to Southampton next Sunday.
They have a Carabao Cup third-round tie at Plymouth or Leyton Orient on Tuesday, September 22 and, if they win in Bulgaria, another Europa League qualifier in Macedonia or Romania two days later, before a league game against Newcastle the following Sunday.
If they are still in both cup competitions, they will play the Carabao Cup fourth round on Tuesday, September 29, and a Europa League play-off two days later before a trip to Manchester United on Sunday, October 4, and then the international break.
‘It is a big risk in terms of our ambitions,’ fumed Mourinho. ‘First of all, because it is very, very possible you lose one of these matches. If you lose in the Europa League, you go out. If you lose in the Carabao Cup, you go out.
‘So, at that level, it is a big risk. Injury, obviously. Everybody speaks about lots of matches in some periods but this is unique. It has never happened.
‘If we decide one of these competitions is not important for us, we go against the nature of the club and against our own ambitions. We have our ambitions and we have our rights to try to fight for the competitions.’ Mourinho, having signed Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Matt Doherty and Joe Hart, is confident of adding a new striker before the transfer window closes next month. ‘Yes, I want, I need a striker,’ said Mourinho. ‘But I want to make it very clear that the club knows I need a striker and also want a striker. Are we going to get one? I honestly believe so.
‘We cannot go into the market and spend a fortune on players but we are all working hard.’
Under Mauricio Pochettino, Spurs found it hard to find a striker willing to operate as backup to Kane and Son Heung-min.
‘If a striker is afraid to come to Tottenham and the striker is afraid of competition then I don’t want the striker,’ said Mourinho. ‘It’s not for me to convince him, it’s for him to convince me. I don’t like the word back-up. I know we have one of the best strikers in the world.
‘Hojbjerg didn’t ask me, “Am I back-up or am I going to play?” It’s up to you, mate.
‘A striker that comes here has to come with his own ambitions. If he doesn’t have ambitions he doesn’t belong to us.’
Defender Japhet Tanganga is out for a ‘few weeks’ with a thigh injury, but Mourinho had some advice for Danny Rose, saying: ‘If he goes to Serie A and Genoa I think it will be very good for him.’