Tottenham advanced to the EFL Cup quarter-finals on Tuesday night thanks to a hard-fought victory over Chelsea.Ahead of the match, Mourinho insisted his Spurs side had “no chance” of beating their opponents.The Portuguese coach’s pre-game mind-games paid off.Chelsea took the lead in the 20th minute through Timo Werner, who scored his first competitive goal for the club with an excellent finish past Hugo Lloris.Frank Lampard’s side were less than 10 minutes away from sealing victory when Erik Lamela netted the equaliser.The tie was eventually decided by penalties and the first nine players scored, meaning Mason Mount had to convert his spot-kick otherwise the Blues were out.The England international missed and Tottenham’s players all celebrated jubilantly.
All except one, that is.Eric Dier - who made headlines on the night for nipping to the toilet in the second half - immediately made his way over to Mount to console the midfielder.Watch the video here…
That’s class from Dier. Let’s just hope he washed his hands after using the loo!
Dier knows exactly how Mount was feeling. Back in January 2019, the versatile defender missed a penalty against Chelsea in a League Cup semi-final clash.
This was Dier’s penalty back then…
He made no mistake from the spot on Tuesday, however, slotting home Spurs’ opening penalty of the shoot-out.
"I told you before the game we would be ready to fight and we were ready to fight,” Mourinho was quoted as saying by Sky Sports after the match. “I told the players before the penalties that I don't care about the penalties, I care about what we did before.
"We were the best team, we were magnificent. In the second half a super team like Chelsea looked very ordinary, and they are not. We played so, so well.
"I told the players they should only think about this game, but I have to think about three games at the same time. They only thought about this game and they were phenomenal, so all credit to the boys.
"I have an incredibly negative record on penalty shootouts, but today I had a feeling that everything was going well. We were by far the best team and the boys deserved to win the match."
On Dier, Mourinho said: "What Eric Dier did is not normal and I have to praise him in a special way. The football authorities have so many rules at the moment but it should be forbidden for a player to play two matches at this intensity in 48 hours.
"The Newcastle match was a Premier League match, and this one was a match at Premier League level. It is not human what Eric Dier did.
"All the other players were phenomenal, too. (Japhet) Tanganga hadn't even played a friendly. I feel sorry for Joe (Hart) but I had to [pick Hugo Lloris] to give a sign to my team that we were here to win."
And on following Dier to the toilet, Mourinho continued: "He had to go! But I was just trying to put pressure on him to have him back for the rest of the game. He was a great example for everybody playing these two matches."
Dier, in his post-match interview, added: "He (Mourinho) wasn't happy but there was nothing I could do about it really. Nature was calling! There was a chance when I wasn't on the pitch but thankfully they didn't score."