Serge Aurier does not require social media to judge his performances at Tottenham Hotspur and has spoken about his relationship with Jose Mourinho.
Serge Aurier said: “Yes, [I watch back my own performances] all the time. Whether I was good or bad. All the time because I need to know what I did well and not well and what I need to improve. People don’t know this but I’ve been doing this for years. The thing that I am the most serious about is football. In terms of football, I’m very concentrated on it, I’m very serious. It’s a way of avoiding social media. I never go on social media to check what’s happening and what people are saying about me. If you live like this you will never progress. Some people know nothing about football, but they’d speak about how you played, saying ‘you played fantastic” while you know you didn’t play well. If you listen to what the commentators are saying such as ‘that was a good match and well played’ I’d believe that I was good even though I know I wasn’t, but reading a couple of comments you’ll start thinking ‘hmm, maybe I was good in the end’, and this for me is not the best solution to make the most of the criticism. It’s very important that you self-critique. It’s very important to not lie to yourself and to have close friends able to say ‘no, you were not good, you were bad’. When you have this around you, you automatically question yourself. I have friends who are huge fans of football who also are such jokers. It means that if there was something coming out on social media they would know it right away. Anything, they’d know. They would not leave me alone. As soon as the match is finished, we have a group, I’m dead. I know if I was good or not good. I know what’s going to happen in there. When you have that you don’t even had time to sleep, because after a match you already know what’s going to be important and so on. When people know about football they know you can’t play 150 matches and 150 good matches. One in 10 matches, I may play badly and people say ‘no, you don’t have the right’. But I do. I’m not a robot, it’s not like the Playstation. It’s not like pressing a button and things happen. You are allowed to mess up sometimes. So if Mourinho came out to defend me, it’s because it was a period when I gave a lot and I was good. So yes ‘Serge can mess up once, but he does it again, I won’t be able to defend him, but he can mess up in one game out of 10’. It is the way the relationship works. I don’t like being the coach’s buddy. We are professionals. It means do your job, I’ll do mine, because if tomorrow the club wants me out because I’m not good enough, I won’t take you in my suitcase. Same for the coach. If you have to be fired because the results are not good, they won’t kick me out along with you. We both have to do our job and take our responsibilities. Football is a collective sport but also individual in a way.”
Serge Aurier said: “Never, in fact my whole life, I’m telling you, I have never been the first choice in my life,” he said. Never. It sums up my whole life perfectly. That’s what’s good about it. It motivates me. Without football, I don’t know what I would have done. I won’t lie to you, saying that I would have been a teacher or whatever. I don’t know what I would have become. So automatically yes, football saved me. It’s my saviour. It was also something I wanted to do and I had the means to do it, and to do it well. I made sacrifices. I did it, I left my family quite young, leaving your family behind and going north when you’re young, it wasn’t easy. You don’t know anyone and your friends are far behind. These are the sacrifices that you make.”
Aurier has enjoyed a career since that has taken him across France and to the Premier League and a Champions League with Tottenham. In the future he would like to one day return across the Channel to one of his former clubs.
Serge Aurier said: “I’ll never close the door to PSG, never in my life. “I said before that if I returned to France, if not for the club that trained me, which is Lens or for Paris, there would be no going back to France. Lens, Paris or nothing. Toulouse? Yeah, why not? Those are clubs that I loved, clubs where I spent a lot of time, so it wouldn’t be a problem. I would prefer to go to a club like Toulouse than clubs like Marseille or Lyon you see.”
The 28-year-old right-back has upped his level under Mourinho this season, spurred on by the extra competition provided by the arrival of Matt Doherty from Wolves. Aurier, in an interview, has spoken about his performances and the reaction of others.
