Hugo Lloris has revealed why he was ‘annoyed’ with Son Heung-min during Tottenham’s 1-0 victory over Everton but says he has ‘no problem’ with him despite their clash at half-time.
Son’s failure to track back allowed Everton’s Richarlison to get an opportunity which almost cost Spurs their lead after Michael Keane’s own goal in the 24th minute.
Spurs’ keeper ran 40 yards to confront Son as the players made their way to the tunnel and their team-mates even had to pull them apart.
However, both players were seen embracing shortly after the final whistle and Hugo Lloris played down the incident during interview with Sky Sports after the game.
‘It just belongs to the changing room,’ the Frenchman said. ‘Outside you can say whatever you want. There is a lot of respect between all the players in the changing room.
‘What happened between me and Sonny is just something that is part of football sometimes. But there is no problem at all.
‘You can see at the end of the game we are more than happy to be part of the team and have these three points.’
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Asked whether it was Richarlison’s chance that made him furious, Lloris replied: ‘Yeah, I think to concede a chance a few seconds before half-time because we weren’t pressing properly… yeah, that annoyed me.
‘But it’s part of football and we move on. As I said before we are in a situation we need to fight against. We are not happy to be in this position.
‘The most important thing today is to stay focussed for the team and do everything to finish as high as we can. We can only do it as a team.
‘When you play a season like this one, it’s very easy to fall apart as a team, but today we showed that we’re still together and ready to fight and compete until the end.’
Jose Mourinho described the bust-up in the win over Everton as “beautiful” after telling his players to be more critical of one another.
“It’s beautiful,” Mourinho told Sky Sports. “It’s a consequence, probably, of our meetings. If you want to blame somebody for that, it’s me. I was critical of my boys because they are not in my opinion critical enough with themselves, I asked them to demand more from others, I asked them to put their colleagues under the pressure of the team spirit you have to give.
“It was a situation where an amazing kid, who everybody loves, Sonny, the captain [Lloris] thought he had to do more for the team and give a different effort.
“There were a couple of bad words, but I think it was something very important for the team to grow up, for that to happen you need to demand more of each other and be strong personalities. At half-time, I said when I saw the reaction I had no doubts they would stick together until the end.”
