Thu 22 October 2020, 23:21
Tottenham HotspurJose Mourinho praised the attitude of the players as we produced a perfect start to the group stage of the UEFA Europa League with a 3-0 win against LASK of Austria on Thursday night.
Lucas Moura finished debutant Carlos Vinicius’ stylish assist to open the scoring before Gareth Bale, making the first start of his second spell at the Club, set up an own goal for 2-0 inside half-an-hour. We continued to control the match and added a third when ‘Vinny’ provided his second assist for substitute Heung-Min Son to make it 3-0 on 84 minutes.
“When you have the first match at home, it’s very important to win the three points and to have this positive start,” said Jose.
“The boys took it seriously, from the first minute you could see they were not here to have fun, we were here to take it professionally.
“We made it nice and easy, because it was not easy. If you watch them play in their league and in the qualifiers, they are not easy at all, but the boys made it look easy because they took it always seriously.
“To have 12 players on the bench gives me a great feeling, because you don’t leave anybody out, and everybody is together, everybody is involved, and that gives options in case you need to make changes.”
Jose gave his verdict on Carlos’ debut. “Carlos is more than this, more than this, but still trying to understand the movement, trying to understand the way we press, the communication is only with Lucas and a couple of the Argentinians because he doesn’t speak almost a word of English, so he needs time.
“But he was good, two great assists, some qualities, left foot is quality, he can score goals but at the same time, if he doesn’t score, he knows how to play football, so very happy.”
And, of course, he was pleased with our first clean sheet of the season. “Yes, but the team deserved clean sheets before this match, especially against Newcastle - the team had a clean sheet, then against Manchester United, a penalty in the first minute. The team was playing quite well defensively, but, of course, it was important to have the feeling of the clean sheet.”
