Football news - Jose Mourinho: Sad I had to make Tottenham changes to get a winning reaction
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Updated 22/03/2021 at 08:09 GMT
Jose Mourinho saw his Tottenham Hotspur side beat Aston Villa 2-0 on Sunday in their Premier League game. The three points moved them into sixth place in the league, three points off the Champions League spots in the top four. However the manager said he was 'sad' it took two recent defeats to stir his team to improve.
'Collective soul' needed from Tottenham players - Mourinho
Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho said he was sad that it took two disappointing defeats to get a reaction out of his players when they beat Aston Villa on Sunday.
Spurs lost to Arsenal and then Dinamo Zagreb last week, which led to Mourinho making seven changes for the game against Villa. Mourinho told the BBC that he was disheartened that it took such drastic action to bring an improvement.
"That's sad. Ok I am really happy with that, but it is sad we need such a bad defeat to have this kind of reaction," he said.
"This should not be a reaction, this should be a permanent state of mind, permanent soul in the team, I think that is our next challenge - to have this standard in terms of effort, commitment, sacrifice. Independent of results, this has to be always there to dignify our jobs, the people that love us, the club and the club fans.
"I am a bit sad by realising we can have this soul and we haven't in the last couple of matches. I open my heart, I couldn't open more than I did, it was not a long football talk, but I opened my heart as a guy with more than 20 years in football and lots of experiences, I just care that they did it and the next challenge as a group is we do it every match.
"This team, I didn't feel it was a necessity, I felt the team needed a different spirit, humble, honest, simple people like Japhet, Rodon, Vinicius, the two 16-year-olds on the bench are living the dream, you need people that if you play them for one second they are living a dream."
The team are now three points off the Champions League spots, and Mourinho does not want to lose momentum to the international break.
The Portuguese said: "It is a big three points, now the guys disappear and come back two or three days before the next match and let's pray and hope they come back in good conditions."
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