Mourinho calls on Tottenham to sell want-away stars

Jose Mourinho believes Tottenham should sell any players who no longer want to be at the club.

Spurs have endured a difficult start to the season, winning just three of their first nine matches to sit 10th in the Premier League table ahead of Sunday’s trip to Liverpool.

Defeat at Anfield would see Mauricio Pochettino’s men fall 16 points behind the table-topping Reds.

Tottenham were also eliminated from the EFL Cup after a second-round loss to Colchester, and suffered a humiliating 7-2 demolition by Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

One of the reasons regularly cited for Spurs’ poor form is the continued presence in the squad of Christian Eriksen, Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld, all of whom are out of contract next summer.

And former Chelsea boss Mourinho believes Tottenham would be best served by moving the trio on, having been in a similar situation during his first spell at Stamford Bridge.

“I always felt that the biggest investment Tottenham could do is what they did in previous seasons, which was to keep their best players. That’s the best investment you can do,” he told Sky Sports.

“Some clubs can do both – keep the best players and buy other top players. Some, they don’t and they have to make a choice. I feel Spurs showed clearly that they felt the group was fantastic, with a lot of English players, and they were close to creating history.

“I don’t like to keep players who don’t want to stay at the club. I’m not even thinking of the economical perspective, but the emotion of the player.

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We loved [Arjen] Robben and wanted to keep him [at Chelsea], but he wanted to join Real Madrid, so there are some moments when motivation affects the performance and it’s very difficult to keep a player really happy when he has other thoughts.”