All the talk on social media among Spurs fans over the last couple of weeks has been about Gareth Bale’s potential second Spurs debut which could come against West Ham on Sunday (Sun).
However, Bale is hardly the only first-team player to have stayed back at Hotspur Way over the international break.
The likes of Steven Bergwijn, Giovani Lo Celso and Japhet Tanganga withdrew from international duty due to injuries.
They were joined by the likes of Lucas Moura, Moussa Sissoko, Dele Alli, Tanguy Ndombele, Erik Lamela, Son Heung-min and new boy Carlos Vinicius in being put through the paces at Hotspur Way.
Mourinho admitted that the players who were left at the training ground were still hard at work over the past two weeks.
He told Sky Sports (as relayed by Football.London): “I have missed the press, no I am joking. I have missed the players, the majority of them, but the ones who were here worked very, very well and we managed to give them a couple of days off.
“Hard work since Monday and today is the first day where everyone is back.”
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The Spurs boss admitted that it was nice to have all of his players back from international duty and asked them to forget their results over the last couple of weeks and focus fully on the clash against the Hammers.
Mourinho added: “In that [busy] period, we were complaining about too many matches. Last week we are complaining about no matches, so we are always complaining.
“Jokes apart, we dealt well with that busy period, just because the squad is very good and the boys were fantastic.
“This period now, some of the guys went to national teams and it’s always a period that it’s a bit strange because you want to work but you cannot work because you’re waiting for them.
“Today they come [back] but of course different work for different groups. Then a big match on Sunday against a team that is playing well and getting very good results.
“It’s a London derby as well so let’s forget what we did well in the past couple of weeks where we got good results and a new period starts on Sunday.”
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