JOSE MOURINHO AGAIN pointed towards the purported lack of firepower he has at his disposal following Tottenham’s 2-1 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
Lucas Moura again spearheaded Spurs’ attack with wide support from Steven Bergwijn and Giovani Lo Celso, the latter of whom was extremely fortunate to escape a red card during Saturday’s game.
Mourinho’s side have been badly hampered by untimely injuries to Harry Kane and Heung-min Son, while Irish youngster Troy Parrott — deemed “not ready” by his Portuguese boss — again missed out on inclusion in Spurs’ matchday squad as they made their way across London.
And the Tottenham manager was quick to lament his perceived dearth of options up top compared even to those of his former star Frank Lampard, who had similar complaints about Chelsea’s squad midweek.
“Look at Chelsea: they played a World Cup-winning striker up front (Olivier Giroud), England’s second striker on the bench (Tammy Abraham), and Belgium’s second striker (Michy Batshuayi) in the stands,” said Mourinho.
“We had no strikers on the pitch, no strikers on the bench and two in the hospital.”
Mourinho added to BBC Sport: “I think you are going to be very bored with me, because I think I’m going to be very repetitive. I’m going to say exactly the same words I told against Leipzig.
“I’m very proud of the players, they gave absolutely everything. We don’t have a striker. Our attacking players are not strikers and are in huge levels of fatigue, so very, very difficult for us. No tactical problems. [We were] completely in control of the space, punished by a couple of individual mistakes.
“In the last part of the game when Chelsea was scared of the 2-1 we didn’t have that presence, that power, we didn’t have that to do more than what we did.
To create chances you need a target man or fast people that can interchange positions, you need a different dynamic to the team. We don’t have a striker and we have tired players, it’s as simple as that. We did very, very well. If we score before our opponent, I think we have a chance because we are well organised. But when they score before us and drop back it’s very, very difficult for us.
“A defeat is a defeat, but the good thing is that in the last seconds the players were still fighting for a result and that for me is a very important thing.”
Mourinho also called for the same “noise” to be generated by VAR controversies when they go against his Tottenham side, with Giovani Lo Celso getting away with what Lampard described as a potentially leg-breaking challenge against the Blues.
The Argentine attacker stood on the outstretched leg of Blues skipper Cesar Azpilicueta in a 50-50 challenge, and might well have caused the Spaniard serious injury.
The incident in question was reviewed by VAR, with those at Stockley Park incredibly conceding mid-game that they made a mistake in not advising a red card to be flashed in Lo Celso’s direction.
The Portuguese told reporters when quizzed on the Lo Celso incident: “I hope the noise is the same [from Stockley Park] as when the VAR kills us.
“The same as when Liverpool and [Andy] Robertson should have got a red card. The same as [Etienne] Capoue at Watford which should have been.”
- Omni, with reporting from Gavan Casey
