Jermaine Jenas says Tottenham Hotspur’s Jose Mourinho’s decision to take off Dele Alli at half-time v Everton didn’t make sense to him

Tottenham Hotspur started the new English Premier League campaign on a dismal note, suffering a 1-0 loss at the hands of Everton at home yesterday.

The visitors were the better team from start to finish, with their new midfield additions proving too much for Spurs to handle.

Jose Mourinho’s side appeared to lack a game plan and they struggled to break down a resilient Everton backline.

The match ended goalless at half-time, and the Tottenham boss decided to shake things up for the restart, replacing Dele Alli with Moussa Sissoko.

The substitution didn’t yield any result as the hosts found themselves a goal down 10 minutes into the second-half, and BBC MOTD2 pundit and former Tottenham midfielder Jermaine Jenas believes that the Portuguese’s decision didn’t make sense.

“Most of the time when I watch Spurs under Mourinho, I think: ‘OK, there are going to be moments in the game where things are not going well, but we are going to have a spell where we come back into this.’ But that spell never came. I don’t know why, but the Spurs players did not even seem to be that upset about it either,” Jenas told BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.

“I am sure Jose had a plan but, for whatever reason, his players were not able to execute it. There was no cohesion and no idea about what to do to get back into the game from 1-0 down. They looked lost, low on confidence and miles off anything that was even close to good.

“Spurs lacked everything and even Mourinho’s substitutions were poor. Taking off Dele Alli at half-time didn’t make sense to me – at least he had looked like nicking a goal in the first half.”

Tanguy Ndombele replaced Matt Doherty in the 76th minute while Steven Bergwijn came on for Harry Winks four minutes later, but none could influence the proceedings, and Spurs could do with more quality players on their bench.

Mourinho needs quality squad depth this season given the number of games Tottenham will be playing, and it will be interesting to see if any more signings will be made before the summer transfer window shuts.