Ben Davies responds to Jose Mourinho's 'lazy' comments after Tottenham defeat

Ben Davies has responded to Jose Mourinho's critical comments about the attitude of some of his Tottenham Hotspur players after their defeat to Everton.

Spurs began their Premier League campaign with a disappointing display at home against the Toffees and after the game Mourinho delivered a scathing assessment of the workrate of his attacking players.

"The struggle started in the way we pressed or, I will say, in the way we didn't press because our pressure up top was very poor," Mourinho told Sky Sports.

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"I would say it was lazy pressure and when you have lazy pressure, you don't press and you let opponents build from the back and then they have players with incredible quality, which is not just Everton, it's almost everybody in the Premier League.

"When you let them play from the back then they are comfortable with the ball."

He then told the BBC: "If you don't press them you give them ammunition. We were lazy in our pressing. That is a consequence of bad fitness, bad pre-season.

"Some players didn't even have a pre-season, a consequence of some having the wrong state of mind.

"I don't even want to speak about it - I'm not sure about it, but the reality is that it was too easy for them to play out from the back."

When pushed further he added: "State of mind is to face the game with the right state of mind, with ambition, commitment and desire, with all these ingredients that are important."

Davies was asked about those 'lazy' comments from the his head coach.

"Look it's a tough one, I think everyone worked hard," said the left-back.

"Personally I gave my all, I wouldn't doubt everybody else in the team gave it their all. It's hard to put it down to a lack of effort.

"Sometimes you have off days. But I'm sure in the next few days we'll look at it and evaluate it going forward."

The Welshman was disappointed with the opening match performance but believes it's still early days.

"It's obviously not how we wanted to start the season," he said.

"It's disappointing but we have to look at the bigger picture – there's a lot more games to come."