Serge Aurier left the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at half-time after being substituted against Liverpool on Monday night, according to the Telegraph.
The Ivory Coast international started on the right of a back five and arguably allowed Sadio Mane in too easily for Liverpool’s first goal against Spurs, which happened on the stroke of half-time.
Eric Dier and Hugo Lloris failed to communicate in the middle, allowing Roberto Firmino a simple tap-in to give Liverpool the lead after an even opening 45 minutes.
But it seems Mourinho thought Aurier was to blame and the wing-back was hauled off at the break.
The Telegraph believes Aurier then left the stadium and did not watch the second half, a move that ‘will have no doubt angered’ Mourinho, says the report.
Liverpool went on to win 3-1 thanks to more individual errors, and Tottenham must now bounce back when they travel to Brighton on Sunday night.
But it looks like Aurier is unlikely to play a part on the south coast if he has fallen out with Mourinho here, meaning Matt Doherty – who was arguably worse that Aurier on the night – could be set for a stretch of game time.
That said, Mourinho has already forgiven Joe Rodon for his costly mistake for the third Liverpool goal, so perhaps there is hope for Aurier – although the fact he left the stadium doesn’t bode well.
Rodon was at fault for the third however I felt he was solid considering he has played very few games. Now dier here is a man who plays nearly every week and nearly every time we concede a goal he is at fault. He has to go along with sanchez and Hugo does not look the keeper he was. The problem we have is Daniel levy will not sanction buying two quality centre halfs and a quality goalkeeper. This comes back to levy not spending the money and letting the defence grow old and not replacing with quality early enough. Toby is still our best defender yet he was on the bench. Jose must explain why he is doing this using him in games like the fa cup instead of the league so Jose does not escape the blame.
The problem defensively is due in my opinion to Lloris and his lack of bravery and hesitancy. He should have claimed the ball which was close enough to him to have dropped on it before Firmino scored. The second was his fault also as a World class keeper( Jermaine Jeans words) he should have pushed the ball wide not back out to an on running Liverpool player.
The central defenders are not sure what he is going to do and it makes their decision making more difficult. It’s time for him to go and bring Gazzaniga back before Joe Hart.
Sensible comments, however the ‘real problem’ with the team is that Loris, Dier, Aurier, Sanchez, Winks and Davies (a good player but not top-drawer) have all got serious problems with the basics of the game. For example, Loris is not a brave keeper and his distribution is horrendous, he needs to retire. Eric Dier does not jump for any balls coming into the area, especially corners and he also is horrendous with his ball distribution. I could go on with observations on the others but having followed Spurs for 55 years all I see is sticking plaster reactions. We need to offload 7-8 players from the squad but the big question is ‘Who would buy them?’.