Mourinho: Dele questionable for Everton match

There’s no rest for the weary if you’re Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs are back in action on Monday, hosting Everton at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in a 3 pm (8 pm BST) kick-off. Jose Mourinho was asked in a press conference if there are any updates in team status, and said that there might be an issue with attacking midfielder Dele.

“[There was] something today in training with Dele Alli. When I say something it’s because I don’t think it’s big and I don’t really know what it is.

“The bad thing about a presser 48 hours before the game is there’s still a session tomorrow so you will not know what I know, if he is available or not. Apart from that, nothing. Japhet Tanganga we believe training with the team next week. And no [other] problems.

“[It’s his] hamstring. Which is something which he had problems with in the past, in previous seasons, even the beginning of this season, and it’s always something that makes the medical department think. We all think it’s nothing important and if you ask me in this moment I would say he’d be available. But I don’t know.”

So it could be a thing that keeps Dele out or on the bench against the Toffees, but it also could be fine. That’s... not great, but it is a refreshing change compared to Mauricio Pochettino, who was notoriously tight-lipped when it came to reporting about any injuries apart from someone’s leg falling off. The Japhet Tanganga news is also good — having TangGang back in training next week will be a nice boost as the matches are coming thick and fast these days.

However, if you weren’t happy with Mourinho questioning his players’ mentality after Thursday’s loss at Sheffield United, you definitely won’t like what he said later in the press conference. Mou doubled-down on his comments from earlier, saying how disappointed he was with the way Spurs approached the late stages of the match against the Blades.

“I believed in the evolution of the team and I thought that by a desire point of view, they put more than us. That’s something that disturbs me. It’s something that I feel, I don’t know, that’s my way of being - it’s something that destroys me a little bit on the inside because I think the last thing in football is when you have the feeling you could, you should do more.

“I always say it’s not a problem for me to lose because my opponent is better, it’s not a problem for me to lose because my goalkeeper made a big mistake, it’s not a problem for me to lose because my striker missed two chances with an open goal or a guy missed a penalty in the last minute. Its not a problem for me to cope with mistakes and defeats.

“It’s a problem when my feeling was we could do much more. In this moment I’m not happy but experience and I know that we have another match after tomorrow. We have six matches to play and before the holiday period, which normally is a holiday period for the players but not us coaches, when we try and analyse everything to get the best decisions for the future. We have six matches to play and we have to fight for every point.”

Mourinho also looked ahead to what Spurs might be doing in the summer transfer window, and hinted at what kind of changes might come at the end of the season.

“I don’t know the market. First of all I’m not in control of the market, secondly it will be something new. The dynamics of the market are something that for many of us are still a question mark. It’s a normal situation in every club - some players go, some players stay. I see that as a very normal thing to happen.

“In this moment I’m not going in this direction [of signing only experienced players] and I don’t think personalities they have to do with age.

“There areyoung people with incredible mentality and there’s people with a lot of experience without the right mentality. So I don’t think it’s about age, it’s more about a certain profile.”