Jose Mourinho questioned the attitude of his Tottenham players and insisted he didn’t need Glenn Hoddle to tell him how bad his side were against Dinamo Zagreb.
After a north London derby defeat to Arsenal on Sunday, Spurs’ week got worse as a sensational hat-trick from Mislav Orsic dumped them out of the Europa League on Thursday night.
Tottenham’s only hope of ending their 13-year wait for a trophy lies with the Carabao Cup, where they play Manchester City in the final in April.
The manner of their performance left fans fuming – with many calling for Mourinho to be sacked– while club legend and former manager Hoddle ripped into the Lilywhites.
He said: “It was a disastrous performance, a disastrous result for the club. Spurs were diabolical. Mentally, they got it wrong right through the game.”
Hoddle’s comments were put to Mourinho in his post-match interview.
The Tottenham boss insisted he had full respect for Hoddle, but said his comments won’t add to the hurt he was already feeling.
“No. Mr Hoddle, of course, is a legend at the club and every word that he says, sometimes negative, sometimes positive, has to be respected,” he told BT Sport.
“But I do not need Mr Hoddle’s words to feel hurt and as I said, more than sad. Sad is not enough.
“I totally respect everything that somebody connected or not connected with the club says about us tonight.
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“I think we have to accept. The problem will be if some accept in a positive way in a sense of feeling hurt and ashamed with the critics.
“Another story is if you don’t feel it, if you don’t care, if you don’t read, and that is a much deeper problem.
“But I repeat, I don’t need external critics because I feel deeply hurt with what happened with my team.”
Mourinho went on to accuse his players of lacking professionalism.
Spurs had one foot in the quarter-finals after last week’s 2-0 first-leg win, but they crumbled in Croatia as they succumbed to Orsic’s sensational hat-trick, going out 3-2 on aggregate after extra time.
What made it even more unbelievable is that Dinamo’s manager Zoran Mamic was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison on Monday and was forced to resign.
Mourinho’s side could not take advantage of the disruption in the Zagreb camp though and he was left concerned by their attitude for a second successive game, having also questioned their desire in Sunday’s north London derby defeat to Arsenal.
In a cryptic answer, he said: “Of course it concerns me. Of course it concerns me. We worked very hard, we tried to provide the best conditions for the players to perform. Of course it concerns me.
“My position as a head coach is the position that stops me, or at least makes me uncomfortable to come in front of the cameras and go deep in analysis. I hope you can understand that.”I believe all of us have to be humble enough to accept any criticism that you can make of our work. It is not for me to go on that.
“They played with a lot of desire that I can call it also professionalism, because for me professionalism starts exactly in the attitude. To be a professional you must have attitude every day and in every minute of every game.
“Then more talent, less talent makes a difference between players but what is never negotiable is attitude and they beat us on attitude.”