TEAM NEWS: Mourinho hints at undisclosed Tottenham injuries ahead of Liverpool match

Tottenham Hotspur have a pretty massive Premier League match coming up tomorrow against defending champions Liverpool, but Spurs will have to take the pitch without a number of injured players.

Who are those players? Well, we’re not really sure.

Jose Mourinho confirmed in his pre-match press conference that Dele, he of the endless PSG speculation, will not feature against the Reds due to injury. But when asked about Ben Davies, who was substituted with what looked like an ankle injury against Wycombe, and Matt Doherty, who has missed the past few weeks with another injury, Mourinho said this:

“Yeah, and we have more problems than that what I’m not going to share. You have to wait for tomorrow but we have a little bit of more problems than that.”

Um, gulp? Nobody really knows what he means by that, who it might encompass, or whether it might even be COVID-19 related. Whoever it is, Mourinho’s not talking, and that means unless something else leaks from the club we won’t have any idea until shortly before kickoff. That’s scary, but hopefully it’s not anything too dramatic. It could just be Jose holding his cards close to his vest, because duh. Regardless, we already know Jose is an unreliable narrator when it comes to player injuries and absences, so I’m just going to wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Elsewhere, Mourinho was asked about this week’s match schedule, one that sees Spurs play three matches in a week — Wycombe on Monday, Liverpool on Thursday night, and at Brighton on Sunday. Mourinho referenced the early season schedule crunch during the Europa League qualifiers, but said he has the squad to be able to compete in all three matches.

“We have to do it. I don’t want to moan, to complain. We have to do it. I know it’s very difficult but if we’re speaking about three matches per week and always two or three days between matches, it’s doable. It’s not a crime. A crime was what we did in August where we played four matches in a week with one day in between matches and we did that for two weeks, seven matches in two weeks. That’s a crime.

“But to play three matches in a week is a difficulty but it’s doable and of course you have some special players that you don’t want to rest because when you rest them the team decreases in potential. But you have the squad, that’s why you need the squad, players motivated. And in our case we went to Wycombe with some players who are not playing a lot but they showed they have quality and they managed to give minutes of rest to the other guys. That’s what a team is, what a squad is. And that’s the way we have to face the season.”

Tottenham kicks off against Liverpool Thursday, 3:00 p.m. ET/8:00 p.m. GMT. The match will be televised on NBCSN in the USA, and BT Sport 1 in the UK.