Mourinho when asked about leaving out Steven Bergwijn from the starting XI:
“Look, that is a question you normally do to me but you do not do to Frank Lampard, to Jurgen Klopp, to Pep [Guardiola], to all the coaches of the big clubs with big players.
“Frank Lampard plays [Christian] Pulisic, you don’t ask him why he doesn’t start [Callum] Hudson-Odoi or something. When Pep Guardiola plays someone and Bernardo Silva is on the bench, you never ask about Bernardo Silva.
“It looks like I am the only guy that has to play 15 players from the start, or I am the only guy who doesn’t have the right to have good players on the bench. If I start with Bergwijn today, you would now be asking me what Lucas [Moura] has to do to start, what [Heung-Min] Son has to do to start.
“They have to do nothing. They have to be team players and team players are player that start that go on the bench, that come in for half-an-hour, that come in for one minute.
“How many times has Nuno [Espirito Santo] left [Adama] Traore on the bench to win matches in the last 30 minutes. You don’t ask Nuno why Traore is on the bench and why he’s playing [Diogo] Jota or [Daniel] Podence or [Leander] Dendoncker. It’s just me.
“So he doesn’t have to do anything else, he’s a team player. He plays for Tottenham and if Tottenham wants to try and compete against the best teams, Tottenham cannot have 11 good players, they need more and we’ll have them on the bench.”
