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José Mourinho suggested that Tottenham’s dressing room is divided by “selfish” players and agents who are related to the press.
The Spurs responded to a shameful exit from the Europa League to Dinamo Zagreb, where they blew a 2-0 lead in the first leg, to rekindle their hopes of being in the top four in the Premier League thanks to a 2-0 win at Aston Villa, where goals from Carlos Vinicius and Harry Kane took the points.
In the wake of Thursday’s loss and defeat in the North London derby to Arsenal, skipper Hugo Lloris came out and said that there were problems caused by players who were not in the team and that the result was a consequence of problems deeply rooted in the club.
Mourinho seemed to agree with that assessment and said it was difficult to maintain a harmonious wardrobe.
“Football today is not easy in relation to that,” he told Sky Sports. “Egoism is around, individual interests are around, agents are around, connections between agents and the press are around.
“And instead of developing a team feeling, empathy, ‘I do for you, you do for me’, ‘I win if I play 90 minutes, I win if I’m in the stands.’
“This is something you need time to develop as a group. Today it takes time because society and the psychological profile of the youngest is not easy.
“I want to be proud of my players, no matter the result. And during my career I was proud of my players many times after the losses.
“I was not proud last Thursday or in the emirates. For me, more than thinking about where we are going to finish, if we are going to win the final (Carabao Cup), it is trying to develop that spirit that we need.
“But I can’t do it alone. I have to do it with my club. I have to do it with my players in the locker room. But tonight I am very happy with what they did ”.
Mourinho accused his players of losing attitude and lack of professionalism in Croatia but, after making some changes, he was happy with the response from his team.
“I am very happy with the result, I am very happy with the performance, I am very happy with the attitude,” he said. “I’m not happy with the feeling that if you did it tonight, why didn’t you do it 48 hours ago? That game on Thursday will be a scar for a long time.
“It will not heal just because we won, but full credit to the players. They were a team. They fought together. They put into the game that honesty, that dignity that soccer players must put in every game.
“I think the next challenge for this team is to have a performance like this, not as a reaction to a bad or a couple of bad results, but to have this reaction, this attitude, this collective state of the soul to have these games.
“We are going to lose games, we are going to play badly, but having these human qualities in each game is the team’s next challenge.
“For me this is the victory of the dressing room, the victory of their spirit, the victory of the group that was ashamed of what happened in the last week.
“I always think that being ashamed is a man’s reaction. I don’t care, don’t give because it’s not for men. Shame is the reaction of a man they had and I am very happy for them ”.
Vinicius’ first Premier League goal, against the progress of the game, put Spurs in the lead at halftime and then Kane scored his 17th league goal of the season from the spot after the break.
Villa’s season is winding down to a loose finish, as a four-game winless streak appears to restrict them to a mid-table finish after threatening an assault on the top six earlier in the campaign.
But Chief Dean Smith said his side has never recovered from having his campaign halted by a coronavirus outbreak in January.
“After the Covid, the form has gone up and down since then, we have lost momentum,” Smith said. “Since then our form has been going up and down and we have lost our consistency.
“But I see that throughout the league. We have had ups and downs, we have played well in some games and not so well in others.
“The number of games we’ve played, Covid broke that momentum, we went back to a really tough game in Man City.
“In the last seven or eight games we have not shown that pace and momentum that we have had. Players have to get back in shape. His form is not there at the moment. “
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