Brutal Jose Mourinho slams Ajax’s tactics after blowing 3-0 aggregate lead in astonishing second half collapse against Spurs
JOSE MOURINHO had little sympathy for Ajax's young stars after their heartbreaking Champions League defeat to Tottenham.
The Dutch side conceded three second half goals to Lucas Moura, including one in the final few seconds, to crash out of the competition.
Their players collapsed on the pitch at the final whistle after coming within touching distance of creating history and facing Liverpool in Madrid.
And Mourinho was brutal in his assessment of the Dutch side after the match and took aim at Daley Blind and Matthijs de Ligt in particular.
Asked whether Ajax should have changed their philosophy after taking a 3-0 aggregate lead, he told beIN SPORTS: "For me, yes. The philosophy is what makes a team grow up in a direction.
"Every team grows up, you need that base, you need that philosophy, you need that style of play adapted to the quality of the players.
"Ajax deserve all the credit for that and all the admiration of people like us who love football, and we give them the credit they deserve.
"But football is a sporting battle and in battles you need strategy. And to win matches, especially special matches, for special matches you need sometimes not to be tied to your philosophy.
They played the game in the second half like they were playing Vitesse
Mourinho on Ajax's performance
"Sometimes you even need to go against your philosophy to win a football match and I think if Ajax, in the second half, hide their weaknesses better, but everybody knows their weaknesses, they have to cope with that.
"We saw many example in their attacking situations, we had other situations where Blind and De Ligt were outside. The basic thing you do when you have an advantage is keep your balance all the time – never unbalanced.
"The balance starts exactly with the defensive line in position then after that a certain number of players always behind the ball line.
"But they stuck with their philosophy, they played the game in the second half like they were playing Vitesse in the Dutch league. They played like it was a group phase game, or one more game in their own league.
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"And I think in this moment they don’t believe what happened to them. Tottenham changed, they used very, very well direct football, they were lucky, they had the gods of football with them, but they chased that luck."
Mourinho added that the blame lays at the manager's feet for failing to change the tactics.
He said of boss Erik ten Hag: "As a coach, there are matches where we don't play, there are matches where we play very bad but there are matches where we play very well and Ajax in the second half needed him to play very well and he played like his team - not very well."
