Jose Mourinho sets Tottenham players challenge to embrace “new reality”

Spurs warmed up for their Premier League return with a friendly against Norwich on Friday at their home in order to adapt to games without fans

Mourinho was pleased with the work achieved against Norwich (Getty)

Jose Mourinho has challenged his Tottenham Hotspur players to adapt to stadiums without fans and insists it is now “the new reality.”

Spurs will resume their Premier League campaign against Manchester United next Friday night with the monumental task of qualifying for next season’s Champions League.

There is a seven-point gap to Chelsea in fourth, although there are just four points separating them from Manchester United in fifth, which may be enough depending on how Manchester City’s appeal against FFP breaches goes.

A friendly against Norwich on Friday saw the teams compete over four periods of 30 minutes to provide an increased workload to both sets of players and Mourinho was delighted with the work obtained.

“It was a good training session,” Mourinho told the official club website. “We needed minutes, we needed to know the feeling of playing here without our supporters and to have this training sessions with another Premier League team is the best thing.

Mourinho was pleased with the work achieved against Norwich (Getty)

“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.”

Harry Kane, Moussa Sissoko, Son Heung-Min and Steven Bergwijn all gained valuable minutes in their recoveries from injury.

“We decided to mix them and to give almost the same amount of minutes to everyone,” Mourinho said.

“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.

“We all know that in these first matches, and in the friendlies, there’s also the risk of getting some injuries.”