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Football London

Sport

Rob Guest

Jose Mourinho's nightmare scenario laid bare over true scale of Tottenham Hotspur fixture chaos

Jose Mourinho's Tottenham side now have one extra date in the calendar after booking a place in the Carabao Cup final on Tuesday evening.

Beating Brentford 2-0 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to seal a spot at Wembley, Spurs will now take on Man City after they secured a 2-0 victory away at great rivals Manchester United.

Usually pencilled in for the end of February, the final will now take place on Sunday, April 25 after the EFL decided to push it back as they would like as many supporters inside the stadium as possible.

With an already demanding fixture list in order to try and cram everything in before the domestic season comes to an end on Sunday, May 23, Mourinho and his team could have something of a fixture nightmare over the coming months.

Tottenham 2-0 Brentford: Jose Mourinho post-match press conference

Already needing to find a date for their home clash against Fulham that was postponed prior to New Year due to a number of positive Covid-19 tests at Fulham, the away game at Craven Cottage will also now need to be rearranged as that was originally due to be played on the date of the Carabao Cup final.

There's also the possibility of having to move league games against Southampton, Everton and Aston Villa if the team go all the way and secure a place in the FA Cup final.

Factor in the Europa League fixtures as well and Spurs will have to play a staggering 38 times between now and the end of May if they get to the finals of both the Europa League and FA Cup.

Spurs have already had to contend with a nightmare week already this season having played four games in the space of eight days at the end of September due to their involvement in Europe and the Carabao Cup.

While Mourinho could near enough name a totally different team for their Europa League qualifier against Maccabi Haifa, he will not want to do the same at the business end of the campaign.

Asked last week about the decision to postpone the Fulham home game, the 57-year-old stated that Spurs would have to "refuse to go through again" the "inhuman" situation that occurred earlier in the campaign when they played four games in eight days.

"And the extreme situation that we had in pre-season and nobody spoke a lot about it because probably people thought, OK, it’s a Europa League play-off match, Tottenham has two teams, Tottenham can play against Maccabi with the second team and still win it," he explained.

"But the situation that we had to go through … we have to refuse to go through again at all. It’s impossible, it’s inhuman.

Jose Mourinho made a number of changes for Tottenham's 7-2 win over Maccabi Haifa (CLIVE ROSE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

"We cannot accept at all if any Einstein comes with the idea of us playing four matches in one week, to do the same that we did before – of playing Premier League, second game, third game and fourth game with one day in between. Impossible."

As revealed by ESPN's Dale Johnson, here we take a look at what Tottenham's schedule could look like between now and May if they go all the way to the final in both the Europa League and FA Cup.