Jose Mourinho spoke about the ugly spat between Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Loris and Attacking forward Son Heung-Min during half time break against Everton and the Spurs manager suggested that he was the one who should be blamed for the tensions rising in the squad after he questioned their mentality and wanted to see some passion from his players.
Jose Mourinho said “We spoke a lot after the game against Sheffield United and one of the things we spoke was to have critical sense, to be open with each other, to be demanding with each other, to don’t accept just the attitude, don’t be passive in relation to the others. I think it was a consequence of it, When I was arriving [in the tunnel] I just saw the back of it. I was not in there. When I arrived in the dressing room everything was over and they were hugging each other. What happened was the last minute of the first half a Richardson shot was diagonal from the right side, Hugo thought that in that minute of the game the attacking players should do a little bit more and he was arguing with Sonny and Sonny with him. When I arrived at half-time I just wanted the players to understand that I was very happy with that. Very happy with that. When I told them that I think they realised that there was nothing wrong and let’s move on. Look what happened at half-time is a good image of that. A team of good boys, a team of nice boys, The only thing they can win at the end of the season is the Fair Play Cup, which is something I never won and I’m not interested in winning that. You need to have a certain character and you need to grow up in your mentality, in your responsibility, in your consistency because it’s very, very important to be consistent. To have a good game, to win a match, lose another one, draw another one, that is the kind of mentality that doesn’t take you further in your ambitions. It’s not a specific concept, it’s a concept that covers many, many areas and I think it’s very important. I don’t like a team without communication, I don’t like a team without demanding from each other, I don’t like a team without a critical sense. What happened today at half-time shouldn’t happen there, it should happen just inside the dressing room. I can promise, my teams, my winning teams, we had big fights in the team.”
