José Mourinho has lent on Gareth Southgate not to over-play Harry Kane in England’s upcoming triple bill of fixtures. The Tottenham manager is preparing for their Europa League play-off at home to Maccabi Haifa on Thursday night – a vital game for sporting and financial reasons – and he is likely to start with his centre-forward.
Spurs are mired in an unforgiving run of matches, with Haifa their sixth in 14 days, and Manchester United await on Sunday, a game which Kane would also expect to start.
Mourinho has been dismayed by the congestion and that extends to the international window, in which England face Wales in a friendly next Thursday and then Nations League ties against Belgium and Denmark. “Three games are obviously too much, especially for my players,” he said, and made the point that if he could resist the urge to start with Kane – as he did in the Carabao Cup shootout win over Chelsea on Tuesday – then the England manager ought to be able to do so.
“When Kane is fit he should start every game for Tottenham but he didn’t [against Chelsea],” Mourinho said. “So I think this is the point. When you have such a player and you want to win every match, you play him, but you just can’t do it. I believe that Gareth [Southgate] and Steve [Holland, the assistant manager] care about the players and I don’t think they want to be connected with something that can be a consequence of this week and the three international matches.
Maccabi Haifa have apologised unreservedly to Harry Kane and Tottenham after one of their players goaded the striker in a lewd social media video. Mohammad Abu Fani scored the winning goal against FC Rostov to set up Thursday night’s Europa League play-off at Spurs and he celebrated a little too enthusiastically in the dressing room afterwards. Grabbing his crotch, Fani looked into the camera and shouted: “Harry Kane is on my cock.”
The club's chief executive, Assaf Ben-Dov, said: “Following the match in Rostov, one of our players made an inappropriate comment that does not respect Harry Kane. Our club condemns such behaviour. We are a club that advocates the person before the player. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Tottenham and Harry Kane, who we greatly respect. We wish them a successful season.”
Earlier José Mourinho, the Spurs manager, had mentioned how until Wednesday afternoon “the only thing my players know about Maccabi is the funny video that the player did about us”. The Tottenham right-back Matt Doherty, who at that point had not seen it, said: “We’re pretty motivated as it is but I guess you can just use it as something a little bit extra to try and really show them who the bosses are here.” David Hytner
“I don’t speak with Gareth or Steve. I just let them do the job in the way they want to do it with the freedom they deserve. Hopefully Gareth and Steve understand what happened with Tottenham this week and they respect the players. That’s just my hope but I’m not going to call or ask or beg.”
Southgate is expected to recall a clutch of players who missed the September get-together because of injury, including Ben Chilwell, James Maddison, Harry Winks and Marcus Rashford. Harry Maguire is poised to be included but there will be no place for Mason Greenwood or Phil Foden.
Ryan Giggs, the Wales manager, has not called up Gareth Bale as the Spurs loanee enters the final phase of his recovery from a knee injury. Mourinho said that Bale is targeting a return in the West Ham game after the international break. He also reported that Son Heung-min, who is out with a hamstring problem, has an outside chance of featuring at United.
Spurs are continuing to chase a new centre-half and centre-forward. On the latter, Mourinho said he was optimistic. The club are closing in on one of their targets, Benfica’s Carlos Vinicius, the 25-year-old Brazilian, who is represented by Jorge Mendes’s company, Gestifute. Mourinho is also represented by Mendes. A loan deal with an option to buy is being discussed.
