Jose Mourinho has called on the Premier League to show leadership and find a solution to avoid a fixture pile-up after declaring that having a third game postponed will be ‘impossible’ for Tottenham.
That prospect is a real one with Spurs’s trip to Aston Villa next week is in doubt after a coronavirus outbreak at the latter which will force them to play under-18 and under-23 players against Liverpool in the FA Cup tonight.
The north Londoners already need their home game against Fulham rearranging after that was called off last month in similar circumstances.
A new date will also be needed for the return which was due to take place on April 24 as Spurs have now reached the Carabao Cup final where they will face Manchester City that weekend.
Mourinho said: ‘It’s the moment for the Premier League to show leadership and make decisions, decisions where of course a club like us that is trying everything, every day to be ready to play, to follow the rules that we had in our hands since the beginning of the season, we cannot be punished.
And if we don’t play against Aston Villa we will have three matches postponed and that is impossible because after the season we have the Euros and of course they are not going to be moved.’
Mourinho insisted Spurs’s Europa League demands especially put another postponement out of the question.
‘I believe that is a completely impossible situation to have three matches postponed, especially if that club plays in Europe,’ he said.
‘If it is a club that doesn’t play in Europe and has three matches postponed of course there are always UEFA fixtures [dates] which are for the Champions League fixtures and, in the Europa League cases, there are even more.’
The suggestion of moving one of the Fulham games to next week if Spurs Villa clash has to be called off was put to Mourinho, who said: ‘I don’t know and it’s not for me to find solutions.
'I’m not going to lie to you I’ve been doing that kind of hypothetical exercise with my staff but of course we have no influence and don’t want to have influence the only thing we can say is what we did in the beginning of the season is impossible to repeat and we refuse to repeat because then we have to defend our players, the integrity of our competitions and we would never accept to play seven matches in three weeks like we did before because of the moment of the season.
‘One thing is the beginning of the season, another is mid-season and also because of the difficulties and demands of the matches because one thing is to play with all the risk like we did the Europa League play-off and another is to play Europa League knockout when all the best teams are there.
‘We cannot be put in an impossible situations, I repeat, to have three matches postponed is impossible. It’s not for us to find decision.’
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