Jose Mourinho says lockdown breach with Tanguy Ndombele was to help Tottenham midfielder fix his 'WiFi GPS'

Jose Mourinho has explained his breach of lockdown with Tanguy Ndombele by saying he was helping the Frenchman to fix the WiFi on his GPS.

The Tottenham manager was pictured alongside Ndombele on Hadley Common in April, seemingly having a one-on-one training session with the club-record signing at a time when Government restrictions prohibited two people from a different households from meeting.

Mourinho admitted afterwards that his actions were "not in line with Government protocol" but declined to publicly apologise, and on the eve of Tottenham's clash with Manchester United he claimed the incident was misreported.

"I spent two minutes with him, trying to teach him how to use the WiFi GPS, nothing more than that," Mourinho said of Ndombele as Tottenham prepare to restart their season with a six-pointer against the Portuguese's former club.

"It was nothing. We were working with the players at a distance, on Zoom. We were monitoring the players with WiFi GPS. At that time the players were allowed to go and run in the street and the park, which is what they were doing."

In Pictures | Tottenham train ahead of Man United clash | 18/06/2020

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Mourinho and Ndombele were picture with two others, believed to be players from Championship club West Brom.

The manager continued: "I went to help a player to put in practice the GPS and the pictures taken in the park speaking with a little group of young men, they were football players but from another club. They were not my players. They were players from a Championship club, and I was there at the right distance having a little talk with them and the pictures gave the idea I was with my players which was not true. It was still a mistake."

Serge Aurier, Moussa Sissoko and Ryan Sessegnon were also guilty of breaching lockdown, while Dele Alli will miss United's visit after posting a video to social media mocking the coronavirus outbreak in early February.

Mourinho claimed Alli's one-match ban was "unfair" given more serious transgressions by other players went unpunished by the FA during the crisis.

"Lots of people made mistakes during this lockdown period," Mourinho said. "I am one of the examples. In my case I believe a very very very small mistake that was not reported in the right way. It was not the way people were saying. But lots of people in football and even outside football, lots of mistakes were made."

"I don’t like these kind of contradictions. I feel that it’s for everybody or it’s for nobody and I feel it’s quite unfair for a kid [Alli] who made a mistake and apologised for it, I really don’t agree with it. But of course one thing is not to agree and another thing is not to respect. And I respect the decisions."

Before the shutdown, Mourinho criticised Ndombele's fitness and complained that he was "always injured" but he said he had seen an improvement in the Frenchman since socially-distanced training began last month.

In Pictures | Tottenham vs Norwich friendly | 12/06/2020

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"When he was back to the training ground, he was committed, he worked," Mourinho said. "I can see he was much more integrated in the group, in the spirit of the group. I think he understands more and more what we want from him. So I'm happy with his last couple of weeks where he showed us some of the great qualities that we know that he has. So yes [he's] ready for tomorrow."

Spurs paid Lyon an initial £55m for the 23-year-old last summer but pandemic has blown an estimated £200m hole in club revenues and Mourinho insisted their spending would be "balanced" in the upcoming transfer window, despite big moves from London rivals Chelsea.

"I’m not expecting, of course, us to be in a position of great spending," he said. "I’m expecting my club to be very balanced and very honest.

Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty I

"We know that we are going to be in the same league, in the same world, as clubs that are going to do completely different to us. You have now examples already of clubs investing and making important movements in the market and we are still nine matches away from the end of the season.

"But I think we are going always to be very balanced which is what Tottenham normally is. Would I expect us not to do anything and to stay exactly with the same squad that we have in this moment? My answer is no. I expect us to do some little important things and if we do our little important things and we improve in two, three positions that we need to improve in the squad, I am completely open to the challenge, I am completely supportive to the board, to the owners. And let’s go for it. But in this moment I am not even thinking about that because I am focused on these nine matches.

"United bought [Bruno] Fernandes, Chelsea’s buying [Hakim] Ziyech and [Timo] Werner, they can do what they want. It’s not our problem. We focus on ourselves. We are going to improve our squad in the way we can do it. No problem."

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