Jose Mourinho explains why Ben Davies had to come off against Wycombe

Jose Mourinho has admitted that it was not ideal to bring on the likes of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min to help his side overcome Wycombe and revealed that he is hopeful that the injury to Ben Davies is not serious.

The scores were level at the interval as Tottenham spurned several gilt-edged chances against Wycombe in the first half.

Mourinho brought on Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg at half-time before introducing Kane, Son and Ndombele in quick succession just after the hour mark as his side went in search of a winner.

The away side continued to be wasteful in front of goal and only managed to find their shooting boots in the final minutes of the game as they got three quickfire goals to make it 4-1.

When asked if it was frustrating to bring on his big guns, Mourinho told Football.London: “What can we do, we want to progress in the competition, we don’t want to throw it away, we don’t want to lose here.

“We knew that we needed a good strong team and bench, just in case so it would be a problem if we had to play 30 minutes extra time because then the Kane 30 minutes becomes 60, the Hojbjerg 45 becomes 75 and so on.

“Hopefully, nothing happened. I didn’t see huge fatigue.”

Overall, the night was full of positives for the North Londoners but the one potential negative was Davies’ withdrawal, with the Welshman being forced to come off late in the game after feeling some discomfort on his calf.

When asked about the defender’s injury, Mourinho responded: “Ben Davies was just a bad feeling, I hope it is not anything on his calf, so hopefully we managed to play and not have big injuries or fatigue and not to have extra time.”

Spurs Web Opinion

Davies is much more important to our squad that many people seem to acknowledge. Not only is he a steady, no-nonsense left-back but his ability to fill in at left-centre-back in a back three gives the squad plenty of balance. I thought the system we employed against Sheffield United worked very well, with both Davies and Reguilon on the left-hand side. Hopefully, he just came off as a precaution and his injury is not too serious.

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