HUGO HAPPY TO PLAY THE UGLY GAME
HUGO LLORIS reckons he and his Tottenham team-mates are well on the way to becoming the ‘c****’ boss Jose Mourinho wants them to be.
A recurring theme of Amazon Prime’s ‘All Or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur’ documentary is Mourinho’s insistence that his players are too nice.
He believes they need a nasty streak if they are to challenge for – and win – the biggest prizes.
Mourinho has been hammering the message home for some time now and as his men prepare to take on Everton in their Premier League season-opener today, Lloris is adamant it is definitely getting through.
The Spurs captain, the last man to lift the World Cup, said: “You know, it doesn’t mean outside the field you are not a good guy – but when you are on the field you have to do everything.
“And everything means also to have this personality to be naughty, to get the winning taste.
“This has to be the way to go. You know, when I look at the games after the restart there were some good signals.
“I could see improvements, especially in the way our manager wants us to play.
“Last season was a tough season for everyone and maybe especially for the manager because he arrived in the middle of the season in a bad period for confidence.
“So now it’s a new season with four weeks of work together and
DOWN TO BUSINESS: Hugo Lloris wants Spurs to toughen up it’s very important to have a good start to see progress in our performances and results.”
Asked whether Spurs will lay down a marker of their new, nastier personality against Everton today, keeper Lloris said: “Yes, but it’s not enough on its own.
“You need to plan, you need talent, team spirit, you need a lot of things to become the winning team. At some points in some games, it’s true, you have to know how to win in the ugly way.
“You don’t need to play the fantastic game to win. And that kind of game you win makes you even stronger, because you know on a bad day, how to win.” Spurs will no doubt have to find ways to win ugly in what promises to be a hectic first month of the season.
Arsenal’s FA Cup win meant Spurs dropped into the Europa League qualifying rounds and they face four games in the next 10 days — two in the top flight, one in Europe and one in the EFL Cup.
Lloris, 33, said: “We just have to adapt to the schedule. Playing a Premier League game, League Cup game and Europa League game with less than 48 hours between the league game and EFL game, is not easy.
“And if we go through it will be the same again the week after.
“We have a squad, the manager will take the decision, but as a player you don’t have to think much, just make sure you are ready for the next game and do your best.”