Jose Mourinho appears to be growing frustrated at questions about Gareth Bale and was asked whether the Welshman will be back at Tottenham next season. After a slow start as he tried to build his fitness, the 31-year-old has now hit his stride with a run of fine performances in this past four matches. However, after a string of questions about the winger, Mourinho was growing tired of speaking about the player when asked at what point such a decision had to be made.
Jose Mourinho said: “Gareth again! Maybe we does not play tomorrow and every question is about Gareth! Come on! Just because he scored two goals! Come on. In relation to that you should contact your colleagues in Madrid and they should ask Zidane as he is a Real Madrid player and he is not a Tottenham player so Real Madrid has everything in their hands. They have a player with one year of contract and have the power in their hands. I just have a player on loan and I am trying to take the best out of the player for Tottenham Hotspur, for all the respect to Real Madrid. It is the same with Carlos Vinicius. We try to take care of the player we have on loan for us but also for the respect we have for the club who loans the player. If you want to ask anything about Gareth’s future ask your colleagues in Madrid to ask Zizou.”
Before that, Mourinho had been asked about Bale’s fitness and what the Portuguese had done to improve the player’s confidence.
Jose Mourinho said: “I did nothing. I did nothing. It is a very personal thing when a player has injuries I believe that a player always has scars, and many times the scars are not just the physical scars, they are the emotional scars. A player who has injuries, until he gets free and clean emotionally takes some time. You just have to be patient and in his case we did nothing. We took care of him the best we could and we will until the last day. So we put everything around him at his disposal. Coaching staff, medical staff, sports science, and I believe that the friends he has in the dressing room play a role in his happiness. So he is happy but of course he is missing that happiness related to perform at a high level. At this moment he is there, he is happy and clean and hopefully we can manage his minutes, his matches and his feelings, and I repeat he is responsible. We give him that responsibility as he is the one who has the knowledge of his body and of course our communication is very, very good, and we are managing the situation as best we can.”
Bale was joined at Spurs in the summer transfer window by Real Madrid team-mate Sergio Reguilon and the Spaniard has quickly become a fans’ favourite for his quick adaptation to the Premier League. Mourinho has been happy with the left-back’s performances and says there is plenty more to come as he continues to adapt to the differences between the Spanish and English top flights.
Jose Mourinho said: “We have two very good left backs. I am so happy with that. Also because they are different players. If one is better than the other in some aspects, that also applies to the other one. I am very happy. Of course Reggy comes from a culture of very technical football. He was born and made in a winning club, a club that is always playing to win, where since you are a kid you are educated in that direction. He goes forward, he is quick, he is creative, he assists, he is enthusiastic. He has things to learn of course, he is a young guy and the Premier League is a different animal than La Liga – not better, not worse, just a different animal – where he needs different qualities to survive and to succeed. However, first season in the Premier League is normally not easy for a certain kind of player. I am very happy with him.”
On the other side of the defence, Mourinho has both Serge Aurier and Matt Doherty, with the latter’s arrival pushing the Ivorian right-back’s performances to a higher level this season. Mourinho was asked whether Doherty having to take second place to Aurier was a surprise to him and also how he managed the situation against Liverpool in January when a half-time substitution saw Aurier leave the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in anger.
Jose Mourinho said: “We cannot do it with one right-back for 50 or 60 matches. The plan was always to have two players per position basically. Ben Davies and Reguilon, Kane and Vinicius and so on. The plan was never to get a right back and stay only with one right-back. We have both. I don’t have the stats but independent of injuries I believe they both played a reasonable number of matches divided by all the competitions that we have played. We are fine. How I handled the situation at half-time against Liverpool? always the same. I make my decisions for the good of the team, sometimes I am right and other times no, but I always do it for the team. I always go back to the extreme situation of Eric Dier against Olympiacos, where I made the substitution after 25 minutes. I always do it for the team and if sometimes players are not happy, that’s life.”
Mourinho is not getting carried away by Sunday’s impressive 4-0 victory against Burnley and when asked whether with all his key players fit people would see the Spurs brand of football he envisaged, he laughed.
Jose Mourinho said: “Come on, I don’t want to speak much. It is difficult to answer as we won 4-0 in a game that we played very, very well and suddenly it looks like my methods are good again and Gareth Bale is a top player again, and we play wonderfully. Come on! Don’t kill us when the results are bad but also don’t make it we are in the top of the world [now]. Let us focus on our job and of course we want to play well, score goals and we don’t want to concede. We want to play attacking football and of course we want the best and always the best but sometimes it is not possible.”
