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‘He’s not the second Harry Kane’ – Jose Mourinho unimpressed with Troy Parrott’s cameo in Tottenham’s FA Cup exit


The Portuguese coach feels the teenager’s quiet outing justified his doubts (Picture: Getty)

Jose Mourinho says Troy Parrott has to ‘work a lot’ to improve
and feels the Tottenham teenager’s ineffective outing against Norwich shows he
was right to leave him out of the side for so long.

There were loud cheers from supporters when the 18-year-old
came off the bench at the start of extra-time in Wednesday’s FA Cup fifth-round
tie, though he struggled to make an impact as the match went to a penalty
shootout.

The Republic of Ireland youngster bravely stepped up to take
Spurs’ fourth penalty, which was saved by Tim Krul, with Gedson Fernandes’
effort also stopped as Tottenham limped out of the competition.

Krul got down to his left to push away Parrott’s tame penalty (Picture: Getty)

While Mourinho defended Parrott over his penalty miss, he
was quick to point out that the young striker had not impressed in his cameo
appearance and is still not ready for a bigger role in the side despite the
clamour from fans to see more of him.

Speaking to BBC Sport, Mourinho said of Parrott: ‘The
penalty is nothing. He is a penalty taker in the under-23s, he scores every one
in the unders.

‘He was so confident, he wanted to take one, he wanted to
take the responsibility, it’s an experience in his career.

‘The problem is not his experience. The problem is the 30
minutes.

‘Now people can see that he has to work a lot so don’t think
that Parrott is the second Harry Kane because he’s just a young kid that needs
to work.

‘Let’s forget the penalty because we all miss the penalties,
it was not Troy.’

Parrott was only involved because Tottenham’s squad has been
stretched to breaking point with injuries and Mourinho says the club cannot put
out their strongest team against both Burnley at the weekend and RB Leipzig in
midweek.

He continued: ‘In this moment I have to think about what’s
next and I have to speak to my club because I think some of these boys to have
a chance to fight Tuesday for a Champions League position they just can’t play
on Saturday.

‘Particularly in forward positions, behind we’ve got options
but not going forward.’

Mourinho says his attackers are being run into the ground (Picture: Getty)

He added: ‘It was a difficult game, as I could expect some
of my players were really, really in trouble and they made an incredible effort
to try.

‘I am not going to say what everybody knows so this time I
am not going to say that but I have to say Steven Bergwijn, it’s too much for
him to play so many minutes like he is doing. I prefer to call Lucas [Moura] a
hero, he is playing every minute of every game in every position to help the
team but he told me he had to go out of he’s going to get injured.

‘Harry Winks was completely dead. I think he’s started 11-12 games in a row, we had many, many players in trouble.’

MORE: Eric Dier clashes with Tottenham fans in stands after FA Cup defeat to Norwich

MORE: Jose Mourinho reacts after furious Eric Dier jumps into stands to confront Tottenham fans

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