https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...ob-spurs-hugo-lloris-dressing-room-divisions/
Jose Mourinho fighting to save his job at Spurs after Hugo Lloris hints at deep divisions in dressing room
Not even winning the Carabao Cup will guarantee Mourinho his job, only getting back into the race for the top four
Jose Mourinho is fighting an uphill battle to keep his Tottenham Hotspur job past this season and to keep his squad united behind him as they attempt to bounce back from their Europa League humiliation.
The shock defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in the last-16 of the Europa League on Thursday night was a massive blow to Mourinho’s hopes of surviving the threat of the sack.
As reported by Telegraph Sport last month, RB Leipzig manager Julian Nagelsmann will be Tottenham’s preferred choice to replace Mourinho if chairman Daniel Levy is forced to act.
Not even winning the Carabao Cup, which would be Tottenham’s first trophy in 13 years, will be enough to guarantee that Mourinho’s job is safe if they cannot drag themselves back into the race for the top four in the Premier League.
Spurs are six points behind fourth-placed Chelsea with a game in hand, which they play at the weekend at Aston Villa, and victory in that match and at Saudi Sportswashing Machine after the international break could see them revive their Champions League qualification hopes. But a defeat in either would leave Tottenham’s League campaign on the brink of collapse.
Winning the Europa League and qualifying for next season’s Champions League would have almost certainly been enough for Mourinho to continue past this season, but he must now give Levy cause for optimism through their League position.
It remains unlikely that Tottenham will take action during the season, unless the situation deteriorates dramatically, and the finances involved in making a managerial change could be an issue, given Mourinho will still have two years to run on his £13million-a-year contract at the end of this season.
Levy initially put former manager Mauricio Pochettino on gardening leave and the likelihood is, at least in the short term, he would take similar action in Mourinho’s case to avoid paying an immediate lump sum in compensation.
It is believed that Nagelsmann could be significantly cheaper to appoint than Mourinho was and the highly-rated German is thought to be interested in working in the Premier League.
Mourinho and his squad returned to England late on Thursday night and stayed together at Tottenham’s training ground before starting preparations for the trip to Villa, which are likely to include
an inquest over what went wrong in Zagreb.
Captain Hugo Lloris laid bare the dissatisfaction and splits of opinion within the squad, which Mourinho must now wrestle with as he attempts to guide Tottenham back on course, following the Europa League exit and last weekend’s North London derby defeat.
Mourinho retains the support of some of Tottenham’s key players, but others are understood to question his training methods and his handling of various situations.
Three of the players who were part of the defeat in Zagreb, Gareth Bale, Dele Alli and Harry Winks, have all been frozen out by Mourinho for spells of this season only to then be recalled for big games.
Serge Aurier stormed out of Tottenham’s stadium at half-time of the defeat to Liverpool in January after being substituted, while
Eric Dier rejected Mourinho’s claim that he had suffered a crisis of confidence.
Danny Rose, who remains friends with members of Tottenham’s first-team squad, is still at the club and being paid but he was not given a squad number and has trained with the youth teams this season.
Some sources are suggesting Mourinho needs “a miracle” to hold on to his job, while others are more cautious and believe Levy is still desperate for his gamble to somehow pay off.
Levy has remained supportive of Mourinho, but he will have been shocked by the brutal assessment of where Tottenham currently find themselves from goalkeeper Lloris.
“It’s just the accumulation,” said Lloris. “We are a club full of ambition, but the team at the moment is just a reflection of what is going on at the club.
“We have a lack of basics and lack of fundamentals. All our performances are in relation to that. Mentally we should be stronger and more competitive.
“To behave as a team is the most difficult thing in football. Whatever the decision of the manager, you have to follow the way of the team. If you only follow the way of the team when you are in the starting XI it causes big problems for the team.”
Mourinho accuses players of lacking professionalism
Jose Mourinho accused his Tottenham Hotspur players of lacking professionalism and disrespecting the Europa League
after crashing out of the competition.
Spurs were
leading 2-0 from the first leg but lost the last-16 tie after a hat-trick from Mislav Oršić at Stadion Maksimir, making it a miserable week for Mourinho after
his side’s poor performance against Arsenal on Sunday. The Tottenham manager made an apology for his team's performance in Croatia.
"For me professionalism starts in the attitude. You must have attitude every day and every minute of every game, then more talent or less talent makes a difference but what is never negotiable is attitude and they beat us on attitude," said Mourinho.
"My team didn’t look like they were playing an important match and it is for me and the respect I have for my own career and job. I feel sorry that my team is the one that didn’t bring to the game not only the basics of football but the basics of life, which is to respect our jobs and give everything."
Tottenham great Glenn Hoddle, working as a pundit on BT Sport, branded the defeat diabolical and disastrous, with Mourinho saying his players must react to the criticism levelled at them.
"I don’t need Mr Hoddle’s words to hurt deeply from this. Sad is not enough. I respect everything that somebody connected or not connected with the club says about us. We have to accept it. The problem will be if they feel hurt or ashamed with the criticism. If you don’t feel it or care, that is a different problem," said Mourinho.
Mourinho says his players were fully prepared to face Oršić, the Croatia winger, but the difference was the attitude of the players.
"The first thing is to tell you is my players, they watched and watched and watched Oršić’s actions during his career," he said. "We prepared with the analysts’ clips and the goals Oršić scored, I saw them all and my players watched them all so I don’t know what to say, only that the first goal I watched it before, the second goal I watched it before and the third goal I watched it before.
"I gave them all the information about Oršić. That’s all I can say. Congratulations to him because it’s a great night for him.”
"Of course I’m concerned. We work very hard. We try to provide the best conditions for the players to perform, of course it concerns me. I believe we all have to be humble enough to accept any criticism that you can make of our work. But it’s not for me to go on that.
"They left sweat, energy, blood. In the end they left even tears of happiness. I can only apologise to the Tottenham supporters. I hope they feel the same way I feel. Today is live or die and in this moment we die. In some other matches I have the same feeling. Until the last day of the season we have to try and do our best."
