‘Why?’: Jose Mourinho’s comments after Tottenham loss leave Jamie O’Hara baffled

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Spurs have lost four straight games in the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup with a defeat against Norwich ramping up the pressure.

Jamie O’Hara has been left baffled by Jose Mourinho’s suggestion that Tottenham Hotspur must choose between prioritising the weekend’s clash with Burnley or the upcoming Champions League visit to Leipzig, speaking to Alan Brazil on talkSPORT (5 March, 9am).

For the first time since 2004, Spurs have lost four straight games in all competitions with their best remaining hope of a first trophy in over a decade going up in smoke thanks to an FA Cup penalty shoot-out defeat to Norwich City on Wednesday night.

It’s fair to say this is not what a North London giant expected when they hired a serial winner like Mourinho in Mauricio Pochettino’s place, the arch pragmatist replacing the purist.

After 120 gruelling minutes against The Canaries, Mourinho told the BBC that he has to almost choose between domestic and European commitments with Spurs’ injury-hit squad due to face Burnley and RB Leipzig in the space of three days.

“In this moment I have to think about what’s next and I have to speak to my club because I think some of these boys to have a chance to fight Tuesday for a Champions League position they just can’t play on Saturday,” the veteran Portuguese said.

And such a claim has left O’Hara, the former Spurs midfielder, dumbfounded.

“The mentality he’s giving off in his interviews, the excuses he’s giving, the negativity around it, he’s giving (the players) an excuse to say ‘oh I’m tired’. You can’t give them that excuse. You have to build them up and you have to be positive and find a way to get the best out of the players you’ve got,” O’Hara said.

“Why (can’t they focus on Burnley and Leipzig)? You still have to try and compete for the top four and you have to try and get a result against Leipzig! These are professional footballers. They can play Saturday-Tuesday.

“Burnley’s a massive game. Leipzig is a massive game.”

Spurs fans might find themselves agreeing with O’Hara’s assessment. Just three months into his managerial career at Tottenham, support on the terraces is already starting to dwindle with Mourinho’s status as a proven winner hanging by a thread.