Jose Mourinho has been accused of ‘sucking the life’ out of his Tottenham players, with former Spurs ace Jamie O’Hara claiming the team has ‘no chance’ of finishing in the top four this season.
The north London side continued their freefall down the Premier League table over the weekend as they lost 3-0 to leaders Manchester City.
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Mourinho’s side have now won just THREE of their last 12 league games, achieving 12 points from a possible 36, in a dreadful run of results that has left them ninth in the table.
Fortunately for Mourinho’s side, the top four is currently only four points away with the Premier League still wide open thanks to a remarkable season that no one can predict.
But O’Hara says this Spurs side has ‘no chance’, claiming the confidence of the players has hit rock-bottom thanks to their manager.
The former Tottenham man insists the players themselves need to shoulder some of the blame for their poor performances, but claims Mourinho taking certain players to task in the public eye – including Gareth Bale and Dele Alli – has killed the confidence of the entire team.
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“I actually feel a little bit sorry for Jose Mourinho, because the players are performing so poorly,” O’Hara said on Monday’s talkSPORT Breakfast.
“When I look at Hugo Lloris, Davinson Sanchez, Erik Lamela and Lucas Moura, they just look so average and so bad, they’re making mistakes.
“In a way, there’s only so much a manager can do; when the players go on the pitch it’s up to them to produce, and they’re just not doing that at all.
“But this is my issue with Mourinho, as a manager it’s also your job to get the best out of the players you’ve got, whether they’re your players or not, it’s your job to get the best out of them.
“And I just feel like he’s sucked the life out of too many of them already.
“You look at Gareth Bale and Dele Alli, he’s cast them aside and hardly played them. Dele Alli wasn’t even getting on the squad, and now all of a sudden he’s putting him on and expecting him to make a difference.
“Players, especially modern day players, are going to go, ‘go away mate, you bombed me off to two months and now you’re expecting me to save the season?’ It doesn’t work like that!
“They look like a team with a severe lack of confidence right now. They look like they haven’t really got an identity of how they want to play.”
Tottenham now sit just two points above arch rivals Arsenal, who were tipped for relegation earlier in the season – which looks even worse when you consider Spurs were top of the Premier League and backed for a title challenge as recently as in December.
O’Hara was a vocal critic of the football Spurs were playing to get to that position before Christmas, with Mourinho’s side sacrificing attractive football to just get results over the line.
But it now appears those tactics have gone out the window.
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“At the start of the season watching Spurs everyone was talking about how it wasn’t great football but they were getting results,” added the former midfielder.
“They were resolute at the back, keeping clean sheets, bodies on the line, even Harry Kane was defending in the box. And all right, it wasn’t pleasing on the eye, but the results were there to see.
“Now it’s the complete other way, all of a sudden we’re trying to attack again, we’re not defending well, we’re leaking goals at the back, I just don’t know where we are as a team and what we’re actually trying to achieve
“Top four has gone for Spurs, I think.
“As much as I’m living in dreamland and thinking if they win their game in hand they’re only one point behind Liverpool, I just don’t think Spurs have got enough about them to get in that top four.”
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