Toby Alderweireld comments on Tottenham Hotspur’s tactics

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Tottenham Hotspur defender Toby Alderweireld has been back to his best since Jose Mourinho’s arrival.

Tottenham’s Toby Alderweireld has admitted that ‘not everyone is doing their job’ under Jose Mourinho’s new system, as he made it clear that a lack of time on the training ground is playing a part in that.

Mourinho only recently replaced Mauricio Pochettino in the Tottenham dugout, and with no pre-season, games coming in thick and fast, Alderweireld shared how not everything is currently clicking, as he made reference to the players pressing.

It has been a pretty frantic and entertaining start to life at Tottenham for Mourinho, whose teams have been scoring for fun, and unfortunately from his point of view, conceding for fun also – though they did keep a clean sheet against Burnley on Saturday.

Ahead of Tottenham’s Champions League dead-rubber against Bayern Munich tomorrow night, Alderweireld offered an insight into Mourinho’s tactical plans and how it has been difficult to execute, at this moment in time.

“The amount of games is unbelievable, so there is no time to work,” Alderweireld told the Evening Standard. “But when there is a little bit of time we try to — and then you see some things coming back.

“We have to be tactical. People think about the defensive process. It’s not only the goalkeeper, the centre-backs or the full-backs. It’s a team process. So, it starts with the goalkeeper, it works as a team.

“Sometimes we want to press and not everyone is doing their job — and then the pressure comes on the defence. We didn’t press all the time on Saturday. Sometimes we played compact, but there was a high line, so I think we did well there.”

Alderweireld has had an indifferent start to the season, as he was nowhere near his best under Pochettino, who did drop him from the starting XI on a number of occasions.

It has been well-documented that the Belgian will be out-of-contract at the end of the season, but with Mourinho’s arrival, it remains to be seen whether that situation will change.

If it does then it’ll bode well for Mourinho, who will achieve a lot more in the long run at the club because on his day, Alderweireld, is one of the best defenders in Europe.