Mourinho comments after Tottenham blow three-goal lead

Jose Mourinho says his Tottenham side paid the ultimate price for not keeping their concentration despite being up by a three-goal lead.

Jose Mourinho says Tottenham were “punished” for taking their foot off the gas in their match with West Ham which saw them surrender a 3-0 lead.

The game looked out of sight at half-time after Son Heung-min’s first-minute opener was followed up by a Harry Kane brace to put Spurs well in command.

But they failed to add to their tally in the second half and West Ham never gave up.

Fabian Balbuena’s header and a Davinson Sanchez own-goal in the last 10 minutes gave them a lifeline before Manuel Lanzini struck a stunning equalizer in injury-time.

Mourinho says his side deserved the punishment for their mental weakness in the second half.

“Football. Of course, I have to analyze the second half and have to do it internally, but for you, I prefer to say football happened, and praise West Ham’s belief,” he said to Sky Sports as quoted by Football Daily.

🗣"We were punished"

Jose Mourinho believes there were a lot of internal matters on his teams performance tonight pic.twitter.com/5DXz69pZoL
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) October 18, 2020

“It is not easy to be losing 3-0 and be dominated, to keep the belief. I knew they are a different team to last season, but to lose the advantage of three goals is a big punishment and eventually deserved.

“I found already by analyzing from the touchline, some things are completely out of the context, once more an indirect free-kick, the own goal, the third is a free-kick and second ball, a rebound.

“The game was under control, we had Harry Kane to score the fourth when he hit the post, Gareth Bale to kill the game. The game was more to the fourth goal, but that’s football.

My guys were not strong enough to cope with it psychologically. The last few seconds we lost two points.”

Mourinho continued: “We should be stronger. In the second half, they risked quite a lot, pressing up and gave us more space. We should get an occasion to win the game.

“I don’t know if it was us inviting them or with them with the extra motivation of getting in the game. I can’t identify us or them, maybe both.”

Mourinho and Tottenham will now turn their attention to the Europa League as they welcome LASK on Thursday. After that, it’s back to Premier League action against Burnley at the weekend.