Mourinho blames Spurs’ defeat to Chelsea on absent stars, lack of confidence

JOSE Mourinho has lost back-to-back home league games for the first time ever in his long managerial career with Thursday night’s 1-0 Tottenham Hotspur defeat to Chelsea, and the Portuguese blamed it on injuries and a lack of confidence.

Jorginho’s first-half penalty gave dominant Chelsea all the points against hosts who were timid for most of the Premier League encounter.

Tottenham Hotspur were without their main striker Harry Kane, who Mourinho mentioned as a big miss.

“I don’t like to speak about Harry Kane and company but they mean something for the confidence of the players,” the Spurs manager said during his post-match press call. 

“We tried without Vinícius against Brighton. We tried today with Vinícius and two up. We tried in the second half with him as a target man and two wingers and a No 10. We’re trying to go on the search but I saw togetherness.”

Tottenham have suffered three successive Premier League defeats for the first time since November 2012 under André Villas-Boas, but Mourinho still saw positives from Wednesday’s display.

“It’s not easy to see togetherness with bad results, difficulties, injuries,” the former Chelsea boss added.

“Togetherness is very easy to show when you’re on a high and winning matches. But in difficult moments it’s more difficult to see that togetherness but I saw that in the second half. No doubts for me.”

Mourinho then refused to explain why he kept Gary Bale, who returned on loan from Real Madrid in the summer, on the bench. “Good question, but you don’t deserve an answer,” he told one reporter who asked him about the winger’s omission. 

He then added after another question: “I’m doing my best, he’s doing his best. Everybody is doing their best.”

Tottenham have scored just once in their last three games, and Mourinho explains why.

 “Well, (Sergio) Reguilon means something for our attacking football. Harry Kane means something for our attacking football,” he offered.

“Gio Lo Celso again means something for our attacking football. A good Dele Alli that we didn’t have yet but hope that we can have in the future means something for us.

“It’s not just what they mean, they mean that we don’t have many options to rotate players and we finish with people with some signs of fatigue because of the accumulation of matches because we don’t have so many players to rest.

“The second thing is confidence. The confidence levels are very, very important to play football. When a team doesn’t have good results, a period when results are not good, you need that click back to go back to normality. So for me it’s a little bit like that.”

Tottenham, who were touted as title contenders earlier in the season, are eighth in the Premier League table with 33 points from 21 matches, 14 points below leaders Manchester City.

Chelsea are sixth with 36 points from 22 matches.