Jose Mourinho has explained what he asked Gareth Bale in their first conversation together as the Welshman was signing for Tottenham Hotspur.
The 31-year-old returned to Spurs last month on a season-long loan, with an option for another year, and he could make his second debut for the club against West Ham United on Sunday.
With the Wales international able to play anywhere across the attacking areas on the pitch, Mourinho was asked where he was going to utilise him.
“One of the first questions in my first conversation with Gareth – because the team is most important thing but the player is important too – was ‘what’s your favourite position’. I wanted to start from there and he answered the question,” said the Spurs boss.
“Does that mean he will always be used in that position? No, because the most important thing is the team, and he will play where the team needs him to play, but he was very clear by saying his favourite position is on the right.
“It’s not as a number 10, it’s not as a striker, it’s not any more on the left side like he did in the first years of his career at Southampton and Tottenham. His favourite position now is on the right side.”
“So, that was a very good starting point of his development here. When he reaches his continuity and when he reaches his normal intensity and dynamic, I think he can be the player people saw being decisive when he went to Real Madrid, in a very similar position.”
“Real Madrid was basically, Bale, Benzema, Ronaldo, with Bale playing fundamentally playing from the right and that’s the position he prefers.”
Another player whose position on the pitch Mourinho was quizzed about was Harry Kane.
The Tottenham striker has evolved this season into more of a playmaker as well as a target man, laying on seven assists as well as scoring eight goals in his first eight games of the season.
“Harry is a number nine and he will always be a number nine, but I used to say this before I coached him – there are number nines who if they score goals they play well and if they don’t score goals they don’t play well,” Mourinho explained.
“That’s because their game is just about scoring goals. So when they don’t score goals, that performance was not a positive performance for the team.
“Harry can play as nine, ten and can even play coming from the left. So if he can do that and explore these areas to help the team to develop his game, why not?
“The only thing that could stop him to do that is a selfish Harry Kane who thinks about himself and not about the team, but that’s not the case.
“He really is a team player and Tottenham man and what Harry wants is to win matches, and if to win matches he has to score one goal less he will be more than happy with that.”
He added: “Good teams and the best teams go on the evolution where their players are not static.
“With evolution, with work, with good players – because some time we like to say how good we are and forget to say we can only be good if the players are very good, I don’t forget to say that. It can be castrating. It’s like when you stop somebody from expressing themselves.
“I don’t want to stop my guys from expressing themselves. I don’t want my players to play like how a train goes. A train always goes on the train track and I don’t want my players to play like a train on the track track.
“I like my players in a certain moment in the evolution of the team to feel some freedom. They can get out of the train and with players like the ones we have – and I don’t just want to say Harry and Bale because I have to say Harry, Bale, Bergwijn, Lucas, Son, Lamela and I forget maybe Lo Celso or Dele Alli or whoever it is – they must a bit.
“I want Harry to feel very happy on the pitch, that’ what I want.”
With his glittering CV full of trophies, Mourinho has taken a step back somewhat at Tottenham with a very different kind of challenge.
However, does the strength of his newly-assembled squad allow him a chance to return to being the Mourinho of old.
“I am not worried about it , I am worried about Tottenham not about me,” he said. “Tottenham needs an evolution and needs to end this period and hopefully we do it with me here, but if not with me, I hope that I can give a contribution for that.
“Tottenham needs to win a trophy, that is the aim of the fans and the club and I am worried with Tottenham and not with myself.
“I will be a just a consequence of it, but I am in a period of my career where I have become much more of a club man than before.
“I always gave everything to the club where I was working but I always had space to be selfish and think about myself and you could feel that In some of my career decisions. In this moment I gave a completely different perspective and I only care about Tottenham.”
Mourinho also cares about the fans and he was asked what his opinion was on their anger at being charged £14.95 to watch pay-per-view matches, including Spurs’ upcoming Premier League home game against Brighton.
“I want the fans in the stadium. That is my worst feeling above anything. That is what I would like,” he said.
“Apart from that what can I say. £14 is a lot of money. You can not even share with your friends as they can not come to your house. It is difficult.
“I feel sorry for the fans, but hopefully this stops quickly and we can have some people in the stadium.”
“Yesterday I was watching an interview with the Porto president on Portuguese television. He was speaking about the contradictions that he feels and I feel. I think the majority of the people feel.
“Theatres with people, shows with people, empty stadium of 50,000 can not have 5,000 or 2,500? Lots of contradictions and it is difficult to give an opinion apart from I miss football fans and I miss football with fans a lot.”
(Football London)
