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José Mourinho criticized the attitude of his Tottenham players at the opening whistle against Leicester in a match they lost 2-0 to dent their hopes of closing Liverpool back to the top of the Premier League table.
The Spurs manager saw Serge Aurier concede a reckless penalty in the 45th minute, which Jamie Vardy converted to put Leicester in control. The second goal came when Toby Alderweireld converted a header from Vardy into his own net, meaning the Spurs have lost two and drawn one of their last three games. It was Leicester who jumped to second place, four points behind Liverpool.
“We started badly,” Mourinho said. “The first 20 minutes were a bad performance, some empty spaces in terms of pressure, attitude, recovery of the ball. I did not like [it] absolutely. The fact that we did not start well is not because I did not tell them to start well. I didn’t tell them, ‘Don’t be proactive or reactive.’ But I admit we got off to a bad start.
“We changed during the first half, adapting the positions in the midfield. We improved a lot, we had a period of domination and then the penalty. The penalty is not a created penalty, it is a penalty that we commit. For me, it was out of context for the game at the time because it was our best period. Aurier made a mistake. But before his mistake, we had other players making mistakes in other areas of the field. I cannot blame a player for a mistake ”.
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Brendan Rodgers, the Leicester coach, described his team’s performance as “outstanding”, strategically “astonishing” and the victory as “fully deserved”. Mourinho disagreed. “It is a game that we lost with a penalty and an own goal and the result seems that the rivals were in full control or better than us, but that is not the reality,” he said. “Our performance was not good, but the game was not as they deserved to win or we deserved to lose. It wasn’t a good game. “
