Jose Mourinho has claimed that the Tottenham Hotspur players deserve to have qualified for next season’s Europa League.
Harry Kane opened the scoring against Crystal Palace, burying a low finish into the bottom left corner after showing good feet following Giovani lo Celso’s pass.
Palace were by far the better side during the second half and Jeffrey Schlupp levelled for the home with a close-range finish after some poor set-piece defending by Eric Dier and Moussa Sissoko.
The 1-1 draw proved to be enough and saw Mourinho’s side leapfrog into sixth place above Wolves, who lost 2-0 at Chelsea.
Mourinho and his staff celebrated at the final whistle over the prospect of playing in Europe next season.
The Spurs head coach admitted that while every team wants to play Champions League football, the North Londoners have done well to achieve Europa League qualification given their lowly league position when he took over from Mauricio Pochettino in November.
He told Football.London when asked about the achievement: “The game was hard. We didn’t play well at all but I understand to play a season in one last game is never easy. Always bring an extra pressure that of course didn’t help us as we didn’t play well at all, but we have the credit to put ourselves in this situation. I think the players deserve.
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“Of course everybody that one day plays Champions League doesn’t want to go back and play Europa League but was the only thing possible after such a difficult season for club, for the players and in my case also for myself.
“But arriving 14th and handling things is not bad at all. I am quite happy next season we play in Europa League and it’s just a question to motivate ourselves for that competition and try to motivate the fans to support us and try to do something beautiful.”
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