DELE CAN PULL THE STRINGS
It’s no time to get violins out says Spurs conductor JOSE’S SILVER SERVICE VOW
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DELE ALLI ordered his Spurs team-mates to man up and book a Champions League quarter-final slot.
Steve Bergwijn, the club’s £26m January signing, joined Harry Kane and Heung-min Son on the long-term injury list yesterday, reducing Tottenham’s limited attacking resources to the bare minimum.
With Moussa Sissoko and Ben Davies also unable to travel to Germany, it leaves Spurs with a mountain to climb if they are to overcome their 1-0 first-leg defeat against RB Leipzig.
But Alli, who threw his boot and water bottle to the ground in disgust at being substituted in the first leg, says there is no point in the players feeling sorry for themselves.
“It’s not a time to get the out,” he said.
“We have to step up and deal with these situations. We have to show our character.
“Everyone in the squad needs to come through and show why they’re here.”
It was Alli’s own failure to do that in Spurs’ tepid show against Leipzig at violins
JOSE MOURINHO has promised to end Tottenham’s trophy drought.
The Spurs boss says he will prove he has not lost his magic touch – even though he admits he faces a huge task to turn around his side’s Champions League last-16 tie.
Mourinho (right) has won the European Cup twice, the Premier League, Serie A and La Liga in a glittering career with Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Manchester United.
But he knows he is under the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that was behind his display of anger.
“I was very frustrated, everyone could see that,” he said.
“But I’ve not thought about it much since it happened.
“I’ve never liked being brought off – much as I respect the manager’s decision. You just want to win and be a part of it and help the team.
“I didn’t play very well either in that game. Sometimes the passion and frustration can get the better of you. I probably should have acted a bit better.”
This time there are no second chances – and that is likely to be particularly true for Tanguy Ndombele, who was criticised so publicly by Jose Mourinho after Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Burnley.
from JOHN CROSS in Leipzig pressure at Tottenham, who brought him in to deliver silverware having not won anything since the League Cup in 2008.
Mourinho said: “I believe Tottenham is not going to be my only club without silverware. I won it at every club and I believe I am going to do it with Tottenham.
“I am here for three or four months. I get the team in very difficult situation and now even more difficult but I believe in me, in the players, in the club and I
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Alli, too, has been the victim of a public dressing down from the Spurs manager when he was accused of playing too much like his brother rather than himself.
But the England star, 23, insists that the Spurs squad have to rise to challenges from their new boss.
“Every manager is different,” said Alli. “We are all human at the end of the day. Some people like to test other people and as a manager it is normal to want the best out of your players.
“As a player you have to step up to those challenges. I know when I am not playing and doing as well as I want to and personally I want to turn it around and show to myself first the ability I have and how much I can help the team.
“When other people start to question it as well, I will already have questioned it myself because I am my own biggest critic.” believe that during my contract I will help the club to do it.”
Tottenham trail RB Leipzig 1-0 from the first leg and Mourinho said the players must embrace the club’s ‘To Dare Is To Do’ motto and attack tonight.
He said: “To dare is to do? I read it every day because it’s written everywhere at the training ground and, of course, it is.”