The Spurs boss turned the spotlight on to players who didn’t play in his side’s disappointing home defeat to their London rivals 

Jose Mourinho suggested missing players were the reason for Tottenham’s limp performance in their 1-0 defeat at home to Chelsea on Thursday.

Mourinho singled out “a good Dele Alli that we haven’t had yet,” as well as the absent trio of Harry Kane, Giovani Lo Celso and Sergio Reguilon after his side were deservedly beaten by Thomas Tuchel’s Blues.

It was a record-setting defeat for Mourinho on a personal level but, while Jorginho’s penalty was the only goal of the game, Chelsea could have scored more while Spurs never looked like troubling Edouard Mendy.

“Reguilon means something for our attacking football,” Mourinho said in his post-match press conference.

“Harry Kane means something to our attacking football. Giovani Lo Celso means something and a good Dele Alli that we haven’t had yet also means something to that. It also is about not having the players to change things. It’s also about the confidence.”

Carlos Vinicius started in attack with Son Heung-min and Steven Bergwijn supporting him. Erik Lamela and Lucas Moura came off the bench to some effect but Mourinho opted not to use Gareth Bale despite still having one substitution left at the end of the game.

Asked about Bale, Mourinho said: “I’m doing my best. He’s doing his best. Everybody is doing their best.”

In general, Mourinho admitted Chelsea were the better team in the first half but he felt his side deserved something from the contest.

“The performance in the first half was inferior to Chelsea. They had the initiative and they had the ball. We were in very low positions. The reality of the first half is that with them being superior a penalty decided the game.

“In the second half they were not superior and they had the low block.

“I saw togetherness and it’s not easy to show togetherness with bad results and with injuries. It’s easy to see togetherness in good moments but I saw it in that second half.”

Tottenham host West Brom on Sunday and will need to improve ahead of a difficult run of fixtures including games against Manchester City and West Ham, plus a return to the Europa League against Austrian side Wolfsberg.