Serge Aurier opens up on that Tottenham dressing room moment with Jose Mourinho

Serge Aurier has admitted that he had to bite his tongue when Jose Mourinho was criticising him in the dressing room before a big Champions League match.

In the Amazon Prime Video show All or Nothing, Mourinho was shown telling Aurier ahead of his first Champions League game as Spurs head coach that he was scared of the right-back giving away a penalty that VAR would pick up.

Now Aurier, in an interview with Soccer Stories – Oh My Goal, has given his side of that dressing down in front of his team-mates before the match against Olympiacos.

“In the past I would have responded directly, because if you’re scared of me, you don’t pick me,” said the right-back.

“If you don’t trust someone, you don’t let them deal with your stuff, right? So if you’re scared of me, pick someone else.

“So I was about to say, I swear, I was about to say it. ‘Pick someone else!'”

“I promise you, I didn’t tell him, because first of all, the coach had just arrived. He needs to feel that the group supports him. If I respond, it’s not good. It’s not good for him, who just got there, right before his first Champions League game.

“So there is also the pressure if I respond automatically, it sends a negative message to him. It means that if the coach talks to me I need to answer because he spoke to me in front of everyone.

“He has the right to tell me that I suck in front of everyone, and if it’s true I will accept it. He has the right to criticise me and to speak his mind and I have the right to respond…..read more

Source: Football.london