‘Roasting him the whole game’ – Journalist claims Mourinho disturbed player against Liverpool

ESPN’s Julien Laurens has claimed that Jose Mourinho was partly to blame for Matt Doherty’s poor performance against Liverpool since the Tottenham boss kept having a go at the right-back throughout the game.

With Sergio Reguilon out injured, both Doherty and Serge Aurier started for Tottenham on Thursday, with Mourinho opting to stick with the back three formation that worked well in their last Premier League outing against Sheffield United.

Doherty started on the left-hand-side and did not get too much joy going forward before switching over the right-back for the second half after Aurier was substituted during the interval.

The Republic of Ireland international’s performance did not improve after the break and he was partly to blame for the Reds’ second goal, allowing Sadio Mane to turn him and get a shot away which Hugo Lloris parried straight into Trent Alexander-Arnold’s path.

Laurens claimed that Mourinho’s constant criticism from the sidelines only hindered the former Wolves man’s performance.

The journalist told ESPN FC: “Mourinho, for example, had a go at Matt Doherty pretty much from minute one to minute 90. Because he first played as a left wing-back, he was on the left-hand side – which was on the side of Mourinho.

“But then he switched to a right-back position at half time which meant that, even in the second half, he was again on Jose Mourinho’s side.

“He had him [Mourinho] in his ear all the time because he made mistakes because he was not very good. And like Steve [Nicol] pointed out, he certainly looked like he really disturbed him.

“He kept losing the ball and it got worse and worse as Mourinho was just roasting him the whole game. I don’t know if Mourinho thought about that or that worked, but certainly, Doherty had a really bad game.”

Spurs Web Opinion

It is not fair to blame Mourinho’s criticism for Doherty’s poor display. Players at this level need to be able to cope with having coaches constantly in their ears. However, Doherty was hardly the only one who was poor against Liverpool as none of our players barring Ndombele and Hojbjerg gave a decent account of themselves.

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