Jose’s verdict on West Brom
Jose Mourinho spoke about the team’s ‘big heart’ as we ended a tricky run of results with a convincing display and 2-0 victory against West Brom in the Premier League on Sunday.
Harry Kane was back after a short injury lay-off and back with a bang, opening the scoring on 54 minutes before Heung-Min Son doubled our advantage four minutes later.
Harry’s goal took him to 20 goals for the seventh successive season and to 208 for Spurs. He’s now equal with Bobby Smith in second place on our all-time goalscoring list behind Jimmy Greaves (266).
Jose said: “I loved the attitude, the commitment, the togetherness, the desire to win. I loved that, part of football expectations, but in that emotional area, I think the boys were very, very good.
“At half-time we should have been winning but we weren’t, they coped well with that frustration, that pressure, they came to the second half to try to score and did.
“Then, in the last part of the game when they were more direct and tried to cause us problems, the boys coped well with that. I would say a good, solid performance, but especially a big heart from the players.”
Asked what was said at half-time, Jose told us: “Half-time for me was one minute. Sometimes, I need more than the 10 minutes, today one was enough, because it was to touch on some defensive points and some attacking points and tell the players that I couldn’t believe if they played the same way in the second half, we were not going to win the game. It was just a simple one minute and, ‘let’s go’.”
Asked what pleased him most about the performance, Jose added: “I could go in a football direction but again, in terms of a group, I prefer to touch on what for me is fundamental, and that is that everyone showed that they were very disappointed with the previous results and everyone showed how much they want to win.
“This spirit, for me, as a coach, I prefer to feel. Of course, footballistically, we did very good things, we pressed them high, the centre-backs were dominated, midfield dominant, Lucas great dynamic, Harry dropping, Lamela with Lucas gave good creation to the team. We did good things footballistically, but I prefer to stay with the big heart that the boys put in.”