Jose Mourinho has emphasised the importance of his Tottenham players getting used to empty stadiums as they prepare to resume their Premier League campaign against Manchester United next Friday night.
Spurs played Norwich in a friendly at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Friday to get a feel for playing in their cavernous home without the backing of their fans, with the match divided into four periods of 30 minutes to give more players the chance to get some meaningful time on the pitch.
"It was a good training session," Mourinho said in an interview with the club. "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.
"It was a good training session. We needed minutes, competition, intensity." 🗣️ Hear from Jose after we continued our preparations with Norwich at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. #THFC ⚪️ #COYS pic.twitter.com/675LBQy2ft — Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) June 13, 2020
"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 were all involved, having recovered from injury during the shutdown.
"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."
