Football.London journalist Alasdair Gold discussed all of the latest Tottenham Hotspur news on the most recent video that has been posted to his YouTube channel and he spent some time talking about Jose Mourinho’s half-time substitutions during Spurs’ 1-0 loss to Royal Antwerp on Thursday evening.
With his side trailing by a goal following Lior Refaelov’s 29th-minute opener, Mourinho made four changes at half-time, with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Erik Lamela, Lucas Moura and Son Heung-min replacing Dele Alli, Giovani Lo Celso, Steven Bergwijn and Carlos Vinicius.
Gold criticised Mourinho’s decision to make four half-time substitutions during this recent YouTube video, saying: “If I’m going to be ultra-critical of Mourinho, I kind of felt four substitutions at half time was a little bit showy and overkill. I thought it was harsh on some of the players.
“I thought Vinicius, in particular, I don’t think he’d been doing much wrong. He was laying it off to players around him who were struggling to then do anything with the ball. I think that was no reflection on him, really, I thought he battled really well, provided a focal point for the team and I’d liked to have seen him remain on the pitch playing alongside the likes of Son and Lucas if you’re bringing him on as well. I think replacing him with Son was incredibly harsh.
“We know what Mourinho’s like – he likes to make a big statement and that’s clearly what he did. The game, afterwards, very much became about those four substitutions and obviously, a fifth before the hour mark, and I just don’t really think it was entirely necessary.”
Was this decision harsh from Mourinho?
YES
NO
TIF Thoughts on what Gold had to say about Mourinho’s half-time substitutions…
It’s clear from what the journalist had to say that he thinks Mourinho didn’t need to make as many half-time substitutions as he did versus Antwerp, with the reporter declaring that this decision was “harsh on some of the players,” such as Vinicius, as he discussed.
You could argue that some of the players who were brought off the bench for the second half failed to deliver a better performance in their 45 minutes on the pitch than the players who were brought off at half-time.
As per WhoScored, Bergwijn (6.15) and Vinicius (6.15) earned a higher overall WhoScored rating from their first-half performance on Thursday than Son (6.12) and Lamela (6.00) earned from their second-half performance. Meanwhile, Lo Celso actually earned the second-highest overall WhoScored rating (6.99) of any Tottenham player versus Antwerp, with only Serge Aurier, who was on the pitch for the full 90 minutes, earning a higher overall WhoScored rating than him (7.12).
With that in mind, perhaps Gold is right in saying that making four substitutions at half-time was harsh from Mourinho, especially as they didn’t help Spurs to change the scoreline.