Mourinho claims he had to remove player because Liverpool were trying to get him sent off

Jose Mourinho has claimed that he had little choice but to take Giovani Lo Celso off in the second half as the Liverpool bench were trying to get the Tottenham midfielder sent off since he was already on a yellow card.

As expected, Tottenham defended with men behind the ball in the first half and stopped Liverpool from creating too many clear-cut opportunities.

However, the away side did not have too much joy on the counter-attack and were a tad fortunate to go into the interval with the scores level at 1-1.

Spurs had much more joy on the counter in the second half and would have taken the lead had Steven Bergwijn or Harry Kane been more clinical.

Liverpool eventually made Mourinho’s men pay for their missed chances as Firmino headed home a late winner from a corner.

Mourinho was far from happy with Jurgen Klopp’s touchline behaviour, insisting after the game that he would have been suspended if he had behaved as the Liverpool boss did.

The Spurs coach has now alleged that he was forced into a substitution since Liverpool’s bench were trying to get Lo Celso sent off.

Mourinho told The Evening Standard: “At half-time we moved a little bit the pieces to try and improve, which we did.

“The tactical changes were to try to give Gio Lo Celso more space coming from the right to start having a little bit more of the ball and find counter-attack situations, which we did immediately in the first 10 minutes.

“With this yellow card and the behaviour of these guys they have on the touchline, putting incredible pressure on referees I feared for a possible second yellow card.

“And Gio was playing exactly in front of their bench in an area that very dangerous. So I was afraid of the yellow card and I had to take him off.”

Spurs Web Opinion

Klopp was certainly flustered in the second half and seemed to be continuously having a go at the fourth official. Jose certainly has a point when he says it would have been perceived differently had he done the same thing the Liverpool boss did.

Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Related Topics

Have something to tell us about this article? Let us know