Rio Ferdinand has hit out at Jose Mourinho over his “excuses-filled” post-match interview after Spurs lost 1-0 to Chelsea on Thursday night.
Tottenham’s league season is imploding, having been top of the table in mid-December, and they went down to Jorginho’s first-half penalty in north London as Thomas Tuchel’s impressive start to life at Chelsea continued.
Since travelling to Anfield at the summit on December 16 Spurs have lost five of their next nine games, including three in a row for the first time since 2012.
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They are suffering with injuries, as attacking threats Harry Kane, Giovani Lo Celso and Dele Alli are ruled out, but Mourinho insisted that he was happy with Tottenham’s second-half performance against Chelsea.
In his post-match interview, Mourinho said: “In the end, it’s the penalty that decides the game because the couple of chances they had, the couple of chances we had, in the end, it’s scoring a penalty that is not a penalty that you say in a dangerous situation, one-vs-one, almost scoring.
“And then in the second half I think it was much more difficult for them, we press them much better and higher, we brought a different spirit to the game and in the second half I believe we deserved a bit more.”
After listening to Mourinho’s interview, Ferdinand commented: “I just hope that his conversation and the way he talks to the team is very different to what I just saw there.
“Because that was an excuses-filled interview more than anything. I understand the manager coming out and dressing down your players in public may not be the way to do it in today’s game but you really do hope those players are getting the message that’s very different to that.
“We can talk about [Heung-min] Son and we can talk about Kane but that doesn’t come away from the fact there doesn’t seem to be any game-plan, even getting out from the back.
“There’s no movement, there’s no game plan, there’s no direction with this team. I just see people playing off the cuff, hoping to get it to Ndombele at the moment who is going to do something to get Son in, if that happens.
“They had one shot all game and that was in the 89th minute.”