Jose Mourinho hits out at Tottenham flops in defeat at Antwerp through Instagram

An ‘upset’ Jose Mourinho took to Instagram to share his disappointment with his Tottenham side following their 1-0 loss to Royal Antwerp in the Europa League.

Mourinho criticised his team for their ‘bad performance’ after a mistake by Ben Davies allowed Lior Refaelov to fire one past Hugo Lloris. 

The Tottenham manager has called on his players to take responsibility for their performance and has revealed that the squad will be attending an 11am training session tomorrow as ‘bad performances deserve bad results’.  

Mourinho took to Instagram to share a picture of himself on the team bus after their match in Belgium. The caption read: ‘Bad performances deserve bad results. Hope everyone in this bus is as upset as I am. Tomorrow 11 AM training.’ 

BT pundit Martin Keown fired back at Mourinho for taking to social media to shame his players. 

Keown said: ‘(Keep it) in the dressing room surely. I don’t think my respect grows for the manager. Some of them going off will have been wounded, maybe my career is over, and I don’t think the players that came on were much better.

‘If you want to talk to me, talk to my face, no?

‘These are messages and I think keep it in house. It’s churlish, a bit childish at times. Players have to keep their mouths shut and he is on Instagram.

‘I don’t think that’s healthy. When I see that sort of thing I don’t think that (togetherness) exists.

‘He gets tough with the players, you need to keep them on board those squad players. It should be equal for every single player. There should be a pathway for every player. It’s a message to them, it hurts.  

It was evident that Mourinho lost patience with some of his players during the game, as he made four half-time changes.

Dele Alli was the most notable player to be taken off as he failed to make it out for the second half for the second time in three starts this season, with Giovani Lo Celso, Steven Bergwijn and Carlos Vinicius also benched. 

Although Mourinho, who took ultimate responsibility for making nine changes, did not name check the 24-year-old, it is difficult to believe he was not talking about Alli.

‘Look, you know what’s our best team,’ he said. ‘You know the same thing that I know, that everybody knows. But I always like to think the players deserve an opportunity.

‘We have a big squad with lots of good players. It’s my responsibility to give them opportunities to play and catch the chance with both hands and be in conditions to ask for more.

‘And tonight my future choices are going to be very easy. But again, there’s only one responsible. Not the players. It’s my responsibility because it’s my decision to play.

‘I don’t want to analyse individuals. I don’t like to do that, especially with you (the media).

‘I think it is fair to say that players with bad performances they influence the team, but also the team influences individual performances.

‘So it is not for me to individualise and to bring some names to the table. You prefer to do that, before matches you always ask me why this player is not playing, why this player is not playing, why this player is not selected. Maybe now for a few weeks you don’t ask me that because you have the answer.

‘I would like to make 11 changes (at half-time). I didn’t make five because I was afraid of a long 45 minutes without any changes to make.

‘There is only one to blame, which is me. I made the team, I chose the players to start and at half-time I tried to improve the situation, but it was not enough.

‘The dynamic of the first half was there and the mentality of the first half was there.’