Tottenham lost 3-0 at RB Leipzig on Tuesday night.
Tottenham Hotspur boss Jose Mourinho has told Football.London that he couldn’t really ask for any more from Japhet Tanganga and Ryan Sessegnon after the defeat to RB Leipzig last night.
Spurs had a real mountain to climb even before making the trip to Germany, as they were 1-0 down from the first leg and without three star attackers as Son Heung-min Harry Kane and
Marcel Sabitzer almost killed off any lingering Tottenham hopes inside the first 10 minutes as he fired in the opener on the night, before heading home another before the break.
Emil Forsberg rounded off the scoring late on, giving Leipzig a 3-0 win on the night and a 4-0 win on aggregate, dumping Spurs out of the Champions League in the last 16.
It’s a difficult time for Spurs, as they now haven’t won a game since February 16th, and Mourinho’s patchwork side is struggling to pick up results.
After the game, playmaker Dele Alli suggested that the mentality of the side wasn’t strong enough last night, and Mourinho claimed that it depended on the players individually.
Mourinho defended Tanganga and Sessegnon, believing that he couldn’t really ask for more from either of them given their inexperience in Europe, but thinks the team mentality as a whole is naturally better when results are stronger.
Mourinho added that Alli having these thoughts is a ‘good thing’, praising the way he can be introspective and analyse himself as well as his time, believing this kind of mentality is great to see.
“Depends on the players. I don’t think a player like Tanganga or Sessegnon, one playing his first match in the Champions League, the other starting his second, I don’t think they are players that I can expect more than what they did. I think the mentality of a team is also a consequence of its power,” said Mourinho.
“When you feel powerful your mentality goes bigger, your self-esteem goes higher. When you feel that for example it’s so difficult for you to score a goal I think your self-esteem, your confidence goes down. At the same time when you know that if you make a mistake you will get punished for it, it’s also very, very difficult. But if Dele has these vision, I think it’s a good thing. I think he can be very introspective and look at himself. He can analyse himself and that’s an amazing thing to have as a player and every player should do his own analysis and if he does it will be very good for him,” he added.
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