Jose Mourinho has really turned Tottenham Hotspur around, at least domestically, but there is probably a ceiling as to how far he can really take this team this season. He’s brought them up to just one point off the top four in the Premier League and that’s very impressive given how they were once as low as 14th.
However, the injury list is getting longer, and it’s filled with key players. In a disappointing 1-0 home loss to RB Leipzig, in the first leg of their UCL round of 16 tie, Mourinho stated his team is doing the best they can given what they have to work with.
“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,” Mourinho said defensively in response to a reporter’s question last night.
“Lamela — 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 (first PL match of the weekend), drinking sparkling water with lemon. Saturday morning (looks at interviewer, in reference to the game being moved for tv)— thank you very much for the choice.”
He certainly has a point when it comes to the fixture congestion, but that’s something every manager has to deal with right now. In terms of TV dictating everything, and thus making life harder for teams, well, he’s totally spot on there. That’s another topic for another time and space.
In the meantime, here’s our best guess as to what team he’ll start against Chelsea on Saturday.
Tottenham Hotspur Starting XI Prediction- ?Lloris; Aurier, Sánchez, Alderweireld, Tanganga; Lo Celso, Winks; Bergwijn, Alli, Lamela; Lucas
Tottenham Hotspur at Chelsea FC FYIs
February 22, 12:30 pm, Stamford Bridge
Team news for both sides: go to this link
Starting XI predictions: Chelsea
TV: BT Sport 1
Referee: Michael Oliver
Form Guide: Chelsea LDDLW Tottenham WWWDL
Probabilities via Google: Chelsea win 56%, Draw 24%, Tottenham win 20%
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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