Jose Mourinho: Tottenham will not throw Europa League or EFL Cup despite 'inhuman' fixture schedule

Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images
Dan Kilpatrick @Dan_KP11 September 2020

Jose Mourinho has declared Tottenham's September schedule "inhuman" but says it would be "against the nature of the club" to throw the Carabao Cup or Europa League.

Spurs are facing consecutive midweeks with two matches if they get through the League Cup third-round at Plymouth or Leyton Orient, and the Europa League second qualifying round in Bulgaria against Lokomotiv Plovdiv.

In total, the club is facing an unprecedented run of nine games in 24 days due the truncated season.

Mourinho described the situation as "impossible", questioned the game's decision-makers and said he feared the spell could derail the club's season.

"If I think too much about it, I will get depressed," the Spurs manager said. "I want to go to every match positive. But the other day I made a challenge with my boys, asking them which one of them thinks they can play all these nine matches for 90 minutes – and nobody told me ‘I can’.

"So we all are very, very aware that it is impossible to do it. It is not human.

"It is a big risk in terms of our ambitions, first of all, because it is very, very possible you lose one of these matches. The Premier League you can lose and stay in competition, but if you lose in the Europa League, you go out. If you lose in the Carabao Cup, you go out too. It is a big risk.

"Injuries obviously [are also a risk]. This is something unique. It has never happened, never happened.

"If we decide that one of these competitions is not important for us, we go against the nature of the club, we go against our own nature, we go against our ambitions because in the Europa League and the League Cup, we have our ambitions. We have our rights to try and fight for the competitions.

"In the end, we end by asking ‘which professionals? Who are the people? Who are the illuminated that make these decisions?’ Because this is not about Tottenham. This is about an English club. It was Tottenham but it could be Wolves, it could be Sheffield United."

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Liverpool played their U-23 side in the Carabao Cup last season due to a clash with the Club World Cup, losing heavily to Aston Villa.

Mourinho accused the game's authorities of hiding and questioned if they wanted Spurs to play a youth team against Plymouth or Orient.

"It is not about us but I would like to know [who makes these decisions], because in this moment they hide," he said. "Who makes a team play Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, Tuesday again, Thursday again, Sunday again.

"Do they want us to play with the youth team in the Carabao Cup? Do they want us? That’s my question."

Mourinho added that the schedule made it more clear than ever that the club needed to buy a new striker to support Harry Kane this summer.

"After the gift we had from the EFL and Uefa, that gives me after 20 years of football a unique experience of playing Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday for two consecutive weeks, we realise that more than ever we need [a new forward]," he said.

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