Former striker explains why Mourinho may not get a lot of time on the training pitch with his players

Former Sunderland striker Kevin Phillips has insisting that Premier League players will need a fortnight to get up to speed with their fitness if the season is to resume and is expected to be concluded within the space of a month.

The Spurs boss was pictured outdoors with Tanguy Ndombele at Hadley Common defying the Government’s stipulations that exercise outdoors should only be undertaken with persons you share a household with due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Portuguese coach has received widespread criticism for defying the rules with the likes of former Spurs striker Dimitar Berbatov (Mirror), TV host Piers Morgan (Good Morning Britain via Express). and journalist Paul Jiggins (Sun), all having some harsh words to say about Mourinho.

While Phillips did not claim that the Spurs head coach was right to do what he did on Tuesday, he did point out that players might not have enough time to build up their fitness if the Premier League decides to cram the remainder of the season into one month.

Speaking to Football Insider, the former England striker said: “If we do reconvene and everything is crammed into one month there is going to be a lot of football.

“But people forget that there will not be a lot of training within that because it will just be a case of recovering, playing, recovering, playing. You are not going to be on your feet day in and day out.

“They are having a long break now and will need a couple of weeks to get up to scratch to get ready to finish the season.”

Spurs Web Opinion

The conversation around injury avoidance is not being given enough importance during these discussions on when to restart the season. Players aren’t robots and many of them will breakdown with injuries if they are asked to play every few days right after an extended layoff. Of course, this doesn’t in any way excuse Jose Mourinho’s decision to defy the government’s guidelines.

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