Tottenham Hotspur journalist Jack Pitt-Brooke has featured on the latest edition of The Molineux View podcast ahead of the clash against Wolves on Sunday.
Tottenham’s penultimate home game of the 2020/21 Premier League season comes against Nuno Espirito Santo’s side with European football still a possibility for Ryan Mason’s men.
Should Doherty start ahead of Aurier?
Yes
No
One topic of discussion was the former Wolves defender, Matt Doherty, who made the move from Molineux to north London last summer.
However, the defender’s move to Spurs has hardly been a successful one with just 15 Premier League appearances to his name this season (via Transfermarkt).
And Pitt-Brooke revealed a potential reason behind the 29-year-old’s underwhelming start to life with the Lilywhites.
He said (48:00): “I don’t think he [Doherty] responded very well to Mourinho. It’s no secret Mourinho was pretty hard on him. By the end of the Mourinho era, you’d often find Doherty being out of the squad at times, even when he wasn’t injured. So, it’s been tough.”
“I’ve heard from sources that Mourinho would be tough on Doherty in matches, at the training ground, he would be critical of him.
“Some players respond really well to that, you’ve seen that with [Tanguy] Ndombele. Whereas other players don’t really, they go into their shell a bit and I think that’s the suspicion really of what’s happened with Doherty is that he didn’t really respond well when Mourinho was very critical of him.”
TIF Thoughts on Doherty’s season so far…
For Wolves in the 2019/20 Premier League season, Doherty shone. The Irishman set the league alight as he proved to be a goal threat from the right-wing-back position.
However, one season on and he has zero goals to his name and just 15 appearances in the league (via Transfermarkt).
It will be interesting to see what role Doherty plays next season under a new manager and whether he can get his form back to a similar level shown in the 2019/20 season – presuming he is still at Spurs come August.
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