Mourinho opens up on “selfishness” within the Spurs dressing room

Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho has opened up on “selfishness” within his side’s dressing room.

Spurs managed to bounce back from their disastrous Europa League exit last week with a comfortable 2-0 win over Aston Villa on Sunday. The victory takes them up to sixth place in the Premier League table, just three points behind Chelsea in fourth.

Alas, the discontent has spilled out publicly on more than one occasion.

The Mourinho way

It’s clear all is not well within the London side. Hugo Lloris gave a scathing assessment following their European exit, and now Jose Mourinho has echoed those sentiments during an interview with Sky Sports.

“Football nowadays is not easy in relation to that,” he said. “The selfishness is around, the individual interests are around, the agents are around, the connections between agents and press are around.

“And instead of developing a feeling of a team, empathy, ‘I do for you, you do for me’, ‘I win if I play 90 minutes, I win if I am in the stands’. 

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“This is something that you need time to develop this in a group. Nowadays you need time because society and the psychological profile of younger people is not an easy one. 

“I want to be proud of my players, it does not matter the result. And during my career I was proud of my players many times after defeats.

“I was not proud last Thursday or at the Emirates. For me, more than thinking about what position we are going to finish, whether we are going to win the [Carabao Cup] final, is to try to develop this spirit that we need. 

“But I cannot do it alone. I have to do it with my club. I have to do it with my players in the dressing room. But tonight I am really happy with what they did.”

There are still lingering tensions in the air, something which Mourinho is no stranger to. Fallouts and criticism have been part and parcel of his managerial style – is this a case of history repeating itself, or do Tottenham’s issues run deeper than that?

Featured image credit: Getty