muttley
Alert Team
Read this in the last week on Football London. Very interesting insights into the relationship between Serge and his manager. Thought I'd share.....
Serge Aurier has admitted that he had to bite his tongue when Jose Mourinho was criticising him in the dressing room before a big Champions League match.
In the Amazon Prime Video show All or Nothing, Mourinho was shown telling Aurier ahead of his first Champions League game as Spurs head coach that he was scared of the right-back giving away a penalty that VAR would pick up.
Now Aurier, in an interview with Soccer Stories - Oh My Goal, has given his side of that dressing down in front of his team-mates before the match against Olympiacos.
"In the past I would have responded directly, because if you're scared of me, you don't pick me," said the right-back.
"If you don't trust someone, you don't let them deal with your stuff, right? So if you're scared of me, pick someone else.
"So I was about to say, I swear, I was about to say it. 'Pick someone else!'"
"I promise you, I didn't tell him, because first of all, the coach had just arrived. He needs to feel that the group supports him. If I respond, it's not good. It's not good for him, who just got there, right before his first Champions League game.
"So there is also the pressure if I respond automatically, it sends a negative message to him. It means that if the coach talks to me I need to answer because he spoke to me in front of everyone.
"He has the right to tell me that I suck in front of everyone, and if it's true I will accept it. He has the right to criticise me and to speak his mind and I have the right to respond.
"However, I didn't respond because it's not the best moment, firstly, and secondly, in fact I grew up."
He added: "In the past, because I was hot-headed, I would have talked back right away.
"You see [my face at the time], I'm like this, I am processing it. No, to be honest, at the moment I was like 'what the hell are you doing? what are you doing to do? Do you respond or do you not respond?' But in my mind I said, let it go to cool down. There is too much going on around.
"If you respond by sending a negative message. You see, the coach just got here, he trusts you already, so I let it go. It was nothing.
"I would have said 'you're cute and all that but I came here from PSG, I had a reputation so I have to play'. In the past I would have said that. Many times I have accepted coach's decisions that I didn't like. In the locker rooms I was gutted. I knew that as soon as I went on the pitch everything was forgotten."
Aurier, who has been a regular under Mourinho, also gave his take on the Portuguese as a coach and how he may have changed to become the person he is now at Tottenham.
"What's good with him and what makes him a good coach it's that he has a group and he tries to create a nice atmosphere in it," he said.
"Me, like you, I heard what people said from the outside but it's not the same person that I see here.
"I also think with the sabbatical year he took,he questions his methods. We are all humans, so questioning yourself is not bad.
"Maybe he managed to erase his flaws. Today, regarding what I heard about him before, he is not the same coach any more.
"He is a bit more with the players and he hangs out a bit more with the players and I like that."
At Manchester United Mourinho reportedly clashed with Paul Pogba and Anthony Martial, but Aurier said you cannot apply other people's experiences to your own.
"They are people I know well , personally, they are like family," he said of the United duo. "Today you can't compare what he did before and now. I'm mostly concerned with what's happening in the present and what's coming in the future.
"Perhaps he doesn't have a good relationship with certain players and it hasn't gone well with others, but he is still a good coach.
Serge Aurier has admitted that he had to bite his tongue when Jose Mourinho was criticising him in the dressing room before a big Champions League match.
In the Amazon Prime Video show All or Nothing, Mourinho was shown telling Aurier ahead of his first Champions League game as Spurs head coach that he was scared of the right-back giving away a penalty that VAR would pick up.
Now Aurier, in an interview with Soccer Stories - Oh My Goal, has given his side of that dressing down in front of his team-mates before the match against Olympiacos.
"In the past I would have responded directly, because if you're scared of me, you don't pick me," said the right-back.
"If you don't trust someone, you don't let them deal with your stuff, right? So if you're scared of me, pick someone else.
"So I was about to say, I swear, I was about to say it. 'Pick someone else!'"
"I promise you, I didn't tell him, because first of all, the coach had just arrived. He needs to feel that the group supports him. If I respond, it's not good. It's not good for him, who just got there, right before his first Champions League game.
"So there is also the pressure if I respond automatically, it sends a negative message to him. It means that if the coach talks to me I need to answer because he spoke to me in front of everyone.
"He has the right to tell me that I suck in front of everyone, and if it's true I will accept it. He has the right to criticise me and to speak his mind and I have the right to respond.
"However, I didn't respond because it's not the best moment, firstly, and secondly, in fact I grew up."
He added: "In the past, because I was hot-headed, I would have talked back right away.
"You see [my face at the time], I'm like this, I am processing it. No, to be honest, at the moment I was like 'what the hell are you doing? what are you doing to do? Do you respond or do you not respond?' But in my mind I said, let it go to cool down. There is too much going on around.
"If you respond by sending a negative message. You see, the coach just got here, he trusts you already, so I let it go. It was nothing.
"I would have said 'you're cute and all that but I came here from PSG, I had a reputation so I have to play'. In the past I would have said that. Many times I have accepted coach's decisions that I didn't like. In the locker rooms I was gutted. I knew that as soon as I went on the pitch everything was forgotten."
Aurier, who has been a regular under Mourinho, also gave his take on the Portuguese as a coach and how he may have changed to become the person he is now at Tottenham.
"What's good with him and what makes him a good coach it's that he has a group and he tries to create a nice atmosphere in it," he said.
"Me, like you, I heard what people said from the outside but it's not the same person that I see here.
"I also think with the sabbatical year he took,he questions his methods. We are all humans, so questioning yourself is not bad.
"Maybe he managed to erase his flaws. Today, regarding what I heard about him before, he is not the same coach any more.
"He is a bit more with the players and he hangs out a bit more with the players and I like that."
At Manchester United Mourinho reportedly clashed with Paul Pogba and Anthony Martial, but Aurier said you cannot apply other people's experiences to your own.
"They are people I know well , personally, they are like family," he said of the United duo. "Today you can't compare what he did before and now. I'm mostly concerned with what's happening in the present and what's coming in the future.
"Perhaps he doesn't have a good relationship with certain players and it hasn't gone well with others, but he is still a good coach.
