Reporter Alasdair Gold has let slip that he plans to get some sense from José Mourinho in respect of Toby Alderweireld’s absence from the Newcastle game.
What we know so far is José – as quoted by Mail Sport – said of two players ‘They (Toby + Serge Aurier) went for their national teams, and they didn’t make the COVID-19 tests on time to be in the training session on Thursday, not even on Friday. They come only yesterday.’
Curiously though, photos and footage released by THFC on social media and the club website clearly show Toby training on both days, training. Which pretty much contradicts the notion that the Belgian wasn’t training.
The matter has been blown up on the back of another forgettable performance by Tottenham’s backline against Newcastle, where we saw more bugling and yet another lead was thrown away.
“Alderweireld not only was in photos on Thursday from training but in a video on Friday was also shown in training. So for Mourinho to say that he wasn’t training until Saturday and that he didn’t do any training until the final day. I’m hoping we get clarity on Friday because it made no sense…”
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Gold discusses the issue and said that he is hoping for clarity on Friday, which is when the gaffer next takes a press conference ahead of our game against Manchester United.
This will take some gentle wording from Gold, as essentially he’s going to ask Mourinho if he lied about Toby’s availability for non-footballing reasons.
It is difficult to imagine an alternate scenario that gives José sufficient wriggle room given his quote in the Mail Online remark, especially given everyone on the Zoom call will be broadly speaking the same people that heard him discuss Serge and Toby last week.