Jose Mourinho Stresses Importance of Getting Players Used to Playing in Empty Stadiums

Jose Mourinho has stressed the importance of his Tottenham squad getting used to playing in empty stadiums, ahead of the Premier League restart next week.

Spurs will resume their campaign with a mouth watering contest against Manchester United. Tottenham currently trail their fifth placed opponents by four points with United getting the better of them in December's reverse fixture.

This time around promises to be a much different affair and Mourinho's side stepped up their preparations with a friendly against Norwich on Friday. After the game, which Spurs lost 2-1, the former Chelsea boss said that the contest had been arranged to help get his players acclimatised to empty stadiums.

“We needed minutes, we needed to know the feeling of playing here without our supporters and to have this session with another Premier League team is the best thing,” Mourinho told the club's website (via Sky Sports News).

"We have to adapt to this new reality, which is what we tried to do, to have a feeling of playing with an empty stadium.

"The points are there to fight for, and with or without fans, the points are there on the pitch and ourselves and United will have to fight for them."

The friendly - which was split into four quarters of 30 minutes - witnessed the returns of Harry Kane, Moussa Sissoko, Heung-Min Son and Steven Bergwijn, after they all recovered from injuries during lockdown.

"We decided to mix them and to give almost the same amount of minutes to everyone," Mourinho added.

"We didn't want any players to be into the limits of fatigue and of course nobody played the four periods.

"What we work on tactically we do in the training ground but the match was much more about competing, getting minutes, intensity and it's very important to do it and to have this last week without any injuries."