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José Mourinho has criticised the “unprofessional” organisation of the Premier League, saying that the late postponement of Tottenham’s home game against Fulham on Wednesday reminded him of when he coached at under-13 level in Portugal.
The match was called off three hours before the scheduled 6pm kickoff after Fulham reported a number of positive coronavirus cases. It has left Mourinho eyeing further fixture congestion, but he has warned that he will not tolerate a repeat of the scheduling that saw Spurs play four times in a week earlier in the season.
“I felt unprofessional but that’s the way it is or that’s the way it was,” Mourinho said before Saturday’s visit of Leeds. “When I was coaching the under-13 and under-15 [teams] 30 years ago or something like that, sometimes we go to the game at 9.30am and the opponent was not there.
“Or sometimes you arrive for the game in one of the rare Portuguese raining Sundays and the referee didn’t report. I grew up with these situations and was very frustrated for everyone, especially for the kids… you only know in the last minutes. The same almost happened to us – arriving in the stadium and not playing.
“When I say unprofessional…of course I am not referring to Fulham, I am referring to the organisation. I don’t think it’s possible [to have] a situation like that.”
Mourinho would be unhappy at the distorting effect on the competition if, as seems certain, the Fulham game were rescheduled for the second half of the season. It would mean that Spurs would not play each team once in the first 19 matches, rather one opponent twice and Fulham not at all, a scenario he described as “not correct”.
He suggested it could have an impact, for example, on suspensions for accumulated yellow cards. Players that pick up five in the first 19 games are banned for one match.
Wrong start
Mourinho also complained about how Manchester United’s game at Burnley and Manchester City’s home fixture with Aston Villa had been postponed on the opening weekend and only this week rescheduled for January 12th and January 20th respectively. “To start the season with two clubs having a match in hand is immediately a wrong start,” he said.
Spurs were made to play four times between September 27th and October 4th, league matches against Newcastle and Manchester United bookending the Carabao Cup tie with Chelsea and the Europa League playoff against Maccabi Haifa.
“The situation that we had to go through…we have to refuse, at all, to go through it again,” Mourinho said. “It’s impossible, it’s inhuman. We cannot accept at all if any Einstein comes up with the idea of us playing four matches in one week.”
– Guardian