The captain of Tottenham Hotspur Hugo Lloris said the club is still suffering from the aftermath of the 2018-2019 season where they played in the UEFA Champions League final for the first time in the history of the club. They lost the final to a fellow Premier League club Liverpool in Madrid, Spain.
Six months after the loss in Madrid, the manager that took them that far, Mauricio Pochettino, was sacked due to poor run of games. He left the club on the 14th spot on the league table.
Jose Mourinho, who has been without a coaching job for over a year after he was sacked by Manchester United in 2018, was brought in to replace Pochettino at Tottenham. Football fans across the world were surprised that the “special one” accepted the challenge.
When he joined the club in November, the club was 11 points away from top four but he was able to reduce that by 6 points when the team clamped to the 6th spot. At this point, the Portuguese tactician has enjoyed a beautiful start, winning seven matches in the league, recorded two draws and suffered four defeats.
Before the coronavirus pandemic halted football, Mourinho had recorded six defeat in a row including the 0-3 lost to RB Leipzig in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League which ended their journey in the continent. The club also crashed out of the FA Cup, ending their hope for a medal this season. The pandemic halted football when Mourinho and his boys had dropped from the 6th spot to the 8th spot on the league table.
All these woes befell the coach when some star players at the club – Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Steven Bergwijn and Moussa Sissoko, were out with different degrees of injuries.
Hugo Lloris argued that though the injuries some of their star players suffered affected them this season but the source of the woes was the defeat in the finals of the Champions League and the instability at the club afterwards.
“There is a risk when you go over your potential”, the French goalkeeper said. “Last season, we went on an incredible run in the Champions League and we finished the season on our knees. You don’t have time to recover from one season before you have to start a new one.
“And then there was the accumulation of things that provoked the situation and then a lot of injured players, the change of manager. It’s difficult to stay stable and to be always looking at the top.
“There is sometimes one season when everything goes against you. Maybe the consequence when you play four years making a huge effort to compete with the top teams and finish in the top four [every season], it’s a lot of accumulation and one season there is everything you cannot control. It can happen.”
Hugo Lloris is expected to lead Tottenham to face Manchester United on Friday, June 19 as the season is expected to restart on June 17. Tottenham will have the full complement of the players as they are all fit except Dele Alli who has one-match ban to observe.
