Matt Doherty has said Tottenham’s players should take some responsibility for the cub’s struggles during the 2020/21 season and says he has ‘nothing but praise’ for former manager Jose Mourinho.

Spurs endured a disappointing season to finish outside of the Champions League places for a second successive campaign, fading following a bright start to finish the season seventh.

The north Londoners indifferent performances saw Mourinho sacked from his position as manager, with chairman Daniel Levy currently assessing his options to fill the vacant role ahead of the new campaign.

Doherty has opened up on Mourinho’s departure and has defended his former manager, insisting the Spurs squad must take their share of the blame for the club’s poor performances last season.

“He was only there for 18 months. If it was three or four years, it could be a different conversation, but we just weren’t getting the results for him,” Doherty said, as per the Mirror.

“The manager is always the one to lose his job, but as players, we were the ones on the pitch and we weren’t able to get the results for him, which was a shame because he’s one of the best managers ever.”

Doherty signed for Spurs from Wolves last summer for a fee of around £16m, but struggled to secure an automatic role in the side and made just 13 league starts during the 2020/21 campaign.

Despite his sporadic opportunities to impress, the Ireland international believes he was given a ‘fair crack of the whip’ by Mourinho and insists he has ‘nothing but praise’ for the former Spurs boss.

“I definitely got a fair crack of the whip,” he added. “I still played 25, 26, 27 games – that’s a lot of games in a season, so I definitely got a fair crack.

“I had a great relationship with him. He was my neighbour for the whole year, so the relationship was fine. He was a great guy, but unfortunately these things happen in football.

“That was the case, but he is Jose Mourinho, he is one of the best ever and I have nothing but praise for him.”

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