Jose Mourinho bemoaned Tottenham’s injury problems in a spiky post-match interview after his side’s 1-0 loss to RB Leipzig.
Spurs were outplayed for the vast majority of the game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and were perhaps fortunate to come away from the game with just a one-goal deficit.
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Eric Lamela and Tanguy Ndombele made a big difference to the home side when they came on for the last 20 minutes.
And Mourinho was asked by BT Sport whether the ‘real Spurs’ only really became apparent after the late substitutions.
He said: “What do you mean by the real Spurs? Come on, let’s be loyal to the boys and tell them they did everything they could do.
“Lamela [one of the substitutes] – you know how many training sessions with the team? Zero. Direct from injury to recovery with physios and then direct to 20 minutes in the Champions League.
“There are two perspectives – an amazing group and amazing guys but another side you see how we are at the moment.
“It’s a situation like going to fight with a gun without bullets.
“You can say we had luck in some moments, but a great goalkeeper made two magnificent saves.
“I’m not worried with the 1-0 – we can go there and win. What worries me is that these are our players for the next however many matches.
“Moura was absolutely dead, Bergwijn was absolutely dead, Lo Celso was absolutely dead.
“We are really in trouble. If it was just this game I’d say no problem but we have FA Cup and Premier League games.
“I know Lamela could only give us 20 minutes and I knew Ndombele could not play for 90 minutes. I tried to manage the pieces I had.
“Don’t tell me Lamela and Ndombele could have started the game, they couldn’t have started the game.
“Here we go Chelsea [who they are playing on Saturday at 12:30 GMT] drinking sparkling water with lemon. Saturday morning [looking at the interviewer – the game was moved for BT Sport coverage] – thank you very much for the choice.”
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