The one thing that you will always get with Jose Mourinho is unabashed comments following a bad result and it was no different following the wretched 3-1 loss to Sheffield United last night.
Mourinho questioned the player’s mentality following the dreadful VAR decision to disallow Harry Kane’s goal.
This is a snapshot of what the Portuguese said as quoted by the Standard.
“We have to do better, we have to be mentally stronger to cope with what happened during the game,” Mourinho said afterwards.
“We cannot mentally die after Michael Oliver gives a decision. I know that it’s very difficult to take, I know the players around the situation know what happened, you celebrate and feel the goal.
“I know that kick it our teeth but with 50 minutes to go we have to be stronger. That’s my criticism to my team in the second half, in spite of control, ball possession, trying.
“We lost that – I don’t want to say desire – but we were not strong enough mentally to dominate so much but not with that sharpness and intensity that makes you create chances.
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Now, this is not the first time that Mourinho has questioned his player’s mentality, he did it with Man Utd once saying per SkySports ” We were a team that comes with that mental fragility of a bad result”
Naturally, there were some that criticised Mourinho for his comments on the Tottenham players mentality and when Football London journalist Alasdair Gold gave a Q&A earlier this evening it was obvious that someone would ask if the former Real Madrid manager was right to call the Spurs players out.
Gold was asked the following question, Do you think Jose was right in calling out the players mentality, is this the start of the decline we have seen at Utd with Jose and his players?
He responded quite simply “Yes, I think he was right. It’s been a real problem this season and longer”
I feel that Gold is absolutely correct in backing Mourinho on this one, the players do need to be called out, they were atrocious last night, they did bottle it and it is hardly the first time that they have been found wanting when a decision goes against them.