Mourinho rant sparked comeback,
Spurs manager publicly criticises Ndombele Mcneil looks in line for full England call-up
The Tottenham dressing room did not sound a happy place at half-time on Saturday, not least because Jose Mourinho was presumably verbally eviscerating Tanguy Ndombele, which he continued when he publicly criticised his club’s record signing after the game.
“A player with his potential, with his responsibility, I think he has to give us more than he is giving us,” Mourinho said.
The French midfielder was not alone in a dismal first-half display from Spurs. At least they improved after the break and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris saw that as a potential turning point in an injury-ravaged and trying campaign.
Mourinho and his players have little time to dwell on the point salvaged when Dele Alli’s penalty cancelled out Chris Wood’s first-half opener for Burnley. Spurs face RB Leipzig in their Champions League last-16 decider tomorrow, looking to overturn a one-goal, first-leg home deficit, as they did against Ajax in the semi-final last May.
Lloris hopes his team can pick up in Germany where they left off in the second half in Lancashire.
“All the players were angry with the performance,” said Lloris. “We could talk for many hours about what happened. But we have to show more.
“We have to keep faith and keep working hard. The problem is not today, the problem is at home. We have to win games at home and try to get some results away.
“But it’s very difficult in England because grounds like this are difficult to come to. We made a plan, but when we conceded the first goal we knew we had to react. That’s what the gaffer tried to do at half-time and it worked well.”
Mourinho’s damning analysis of Ndombele’s performance and debut season with the club presumably leaves him with an interesting manmanagement scenario to negotiate. And preparations for Leipzig have certainly not been aided by the Premier League and television fixture schedules which left Spurs with little more than 72 hours between the final whistle at Turf Moor and kickoff in Germany.
“I’m not looking at the schedule of the other team,” added Lloris. “You have to adapt in any situation. We’ve had a very difficult season, we had a bad start, a new manager, a lot of injured players and you can feel, even on the pitch, that things are against us. You can see players fighting and giving their best. The confidence is not right up there. But we are working to finish the season as well as we can.”
With prospects of a top-four, or top-five, finish still in the balance for Spurs, Champions League football appears to offer the best chance of Mourinho ending the season on a high note. Ten months ago, it was a very different Spurs team – in personnel and confidence – who stunned Ajax by beating them 3-2 and Lloris is placing no significance on that win as an omen.
“We have to take whatever positives we can into the game. But that game belongs in the past, we have to write a new story now,” he said.
“Of course we have experience of the Champions League from the last few seasons, for most of the players here. We have to be ready to go there and make the perfect game.”
Burnley’s rock-solid season continues with England manager Gareth Southgate a visitor on Saturday, checking on defender James Tarkowski, keeper Nick Pope and, most intriguingly, 20-year-old winger Dwight Mcneil.
Having invited Mcneil as a “guest” to a full squad session last season, Southgate cannot be far away from offering a full call-up to a player who has started every Premier League game this season and 47 of Burnley’s past 48.
“Of course England is a big ambition,” said Mcneil. “It would be a dream just to be a part of the national team, but I don’t mind playing under-21s, and we’re at Turf Moor [against Turkey] at the end of the month, so it would be really good to play at home.”