Jose Mourinho bemoans ‘impossible’ task to beat Liverpool after ‘so many individual mistakes’

Spurs also lost their captain Harry Kane to injury at half-time with the England striker hit by another ankle problem

Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho (Getty Images)

Jose Mourinho has bemoaned the "impossible" task his Tottenham side faced in defeat to Liverpool after making "so many individual mistakes".

Spurs were beaten 3-1 by the champions at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to hit their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League, with the Reds four points clear in fourth, though Mourinho’s side have a game in hand.

And on a night when Harry Kane picked up a significant injury, Mourinho admitted the individual errors were insurmountable.

Mourinho told BT Sport: "It is very hard to resist, to (overcome), so many individual defensive mistakes. It's impossible, unless you score four goals against Liverpool, which is not easy.

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"But every time we reacted the next mistake was coming. It is very difficult to fight against so many mistakes.

"Some of guys are very disappointed because some of them had a very good performance, but we were punished by individual mistakes."

Kane twice went down in the first half clutching an ankle and although he hobbled on, he did not come back out for the second half. 

“Two ankles, the first was a bad tackle, it was Thiago, the second one I didn’t know well,” said his manager Jose Mourinho after the game.

“But two injuries in both ankles, the second one worst than the first one – a few weeks, I don’t know. There are some players you can’t replace. When it happens it happens but I believe we have to fight against it, we cannot do anything else.”

Spurs now face a busy schedule with two games a week across the Premier League, FA Cup and Europa League. Kane has scored 14 goals and provided 13 assists this season for Tottenham, which is sixth in the league.