Blame and Praise in Tottenham Hotspur Loss to Royal Antwerp

Tottenham Hotspur lost control of their Europa League group losing in Belgium to Royal Antwerp, afterward coach Mourinho had both praise and blame to share.

Every time Tottenham Hotspur seem to take a couple steps forward, Spurs turn around and take a step back. The injury time penalty to Newcastle, the blown three goal lead home to West Ham, and now Spurs can add the road loss to Antwerp to the list of steps back this season. Maybe the Tottenham players did not realize they were facing a team even more on form than Spurs had been, having not lost since August. Regardless, Tottenham have mostly themselves to blame for this loss.

Mourinho’s Reaction to Tottenham Defeat

In the immediate post-match interview a clearly disappointed Jose Mourinho noted there were essentially two choices after a match, to “blame ourselves” or “praise our opponents”. Saying he’d “prefer to praise the opponent because they played a magnificent game” rather than to blame themselves for “am awful game”.

Mourinho felt compelled to do both “to praise them because they were playing at the maximum of their level and blame ourselves because we were poor.” When asked if he was surprised by the performance Mourinho noted that the “performance was poor and the result was poor” for Spurs on the evening and there was nothing more he wanted to say but continued to talk for two more minutes.

If we are looking for something poor it starts with the passing, where Spurs as a team completed under 80% of their passes on the evening. Tottenham used all five subs and 9 of the 16 players completed less than 80% of their attempts. Ben Davies in particular had a rough night completing only 65% of his 37 passes from center-half and being dispossessed directly before the only goal of the match.

Jose Mourinho on Antwerp defeat

Jose on tonight's defeat.

Posted by Tottenham Hotspur on Thursday, October 29, 2020

Of course Ben Davies played a full 90 minutes which is a lot more than can be said for the four players hauled off at halftime, as Jose could not take off more. Mourinho blamed himself, because he is “the boss” and it is his responsibility to choose who to play.

From the perspective, of who to choose, Jose expressed, that the game confirmed for him “a few things” and “opened other question marks,” which will help him with his future team selection. A future selection that begins with Brighton who Mourinho emphasized are much better and much more difficult than Brighton. Mourinho ended by noting that Brighton are aggressive and fast, and a good team to play, he “hopes”.

Ultimately, after a poor performance like the one on Thursday night we are all hoping with you Jose. With Brighton coming Sunday expect some serious rotation and ultimately some players may have squandered their last chance to impress until the FA Cup starts or the Europa League Group is handled, as the Premier League is far too competitive and any wiggle room in Europa League is now gone.