Mourinho praises Levy for ‘amazing’ Tottenham signings

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Jose Mourinho

Jose Mourinho has praised the work of Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy in securing the ‘amazing’ signings of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Joe Hart.

The duo made their Spurs debuts on Saturday in a 3-0 friendly win over Ipswich Town with Hojbjerg playing 63 minutes and Hart playing the entire second-half.

Hojbjerg was a £15 million ($19m) signing from Southampton, while Hart arrived as a free agent after departing Burnley.

With Tottenham set to play in the Europa League this coming season should they get through the qualifying rounds, Mourinho feels the acquisitions were crucial as he looks to secure his first piece of silverware with the club.

‘The club found very intelligently the moment to do it,’ Mourinho told Tottenham TV. ‘It was the last year of contract for Pierre, his club was in a difficult situation in terms of negotiation so I think Mr Levy did amazing for us getting such a good player for us.

‘I think the club did amazing in both because they are going to make our squad stronger. To bring Joe, 75 caps for England and lots of experience, he is great protection for us to have three goalkeepers.

‘All internationals for their country, all good goalkeepers, you can sleep well because any injuries or problems that we have, we have three good goalkeepers.

‘With some of the crazy fixtures we are going to have, playing all the competitions, the Carabao Cup at the same time as Europa League and Premier League, even goalkeepers cannot play every match so it is very, very good business for us.’

Spurs finished sixth in the Premier League last season and Mourinho was quick to put their pre-season win in perspective.

‘It was good, positive and really some very good things that I don’t want to go into in detail, but we put into practice some of the things we worked on during the week,’ he said.

‘We managed to save the majority of the players from playing 90 minutes, which is too premature in this first week of pre-season. Ipswich play in League One, but they have trained for a few weeks, they played two teams, so they kept lots of intensity in the game. So, I think it was good.

‘We gave the opportunity to lots of young players to play, some really young, Alfie [Devine] was playing for Wigan Under-16s a few months ago, and [Dane] Scarlett is 16, and closer to 15 than 17. So, it was good overall.’