Jose Mourinho has demanded his Tottenham Hotspur players maintain the level of desire they showed in bouncing back from a difficult week to...
Jose Mourinho has demanded his Tottenham Hotspur players maintain the level of desire they showed in bouncing back from a difficult week to win 2-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday.
Spurs threw away a 2-0 first-leg lead to crash out of the Europa League with a 3-0 defeat by Dinamo Zagreb on Thursday, four days on from losing the north London derby 2-1 to Arsenal.
But they rekindled their hopes of a top-four Premier League finish as Carlos Vinicius and Harry Kane were on target at Villa Park.
Mourinho made eight changes in an attempt to summon a response from his side’s collapse in the Croatian capital and got the result he needed, even if the performance still left much to be desired.
Vinicius was partnered alongside Kane in a change to a 4-4-2 formation, with Gareth Bale and Dele Alli both dropped to the bench despite the absence of Son Heung-min through injury.
However, Mourinho said effort and not tactics was the key to change in fortunes for Spurs.
“Good result. Total credit to the players for an incredible attitude, incredible effort,” said Mourinho.
“I think our next challenge is not to play like this as a reaction of an awful performance, but to play like this, with this soul, as a permanent...
