Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho has heaped praises on his players for being “fantastic in their effort” but admitted that the 1-1 draw against Manchester United on Friday was not the result the team wanted at their own backyard.

“The players gave everything,” Mourinho said as quoted on the official website of Tottenham Hotspur. “Harry, for six months he didn’t play a game, played for 90 minutes, gave absolutely everything. Sonny, not six months but maybe four, Moussa as well, and they come, they play and play for 90 minutes. Gio (Lo Celso), he trained once with us, once with the team, but came here available to play.

“Everyone was, in my opinion, fantastic in their effort. I’m very proud of them during the lockdown period, the work they did, and also today, everything they tried. It’s not the result we wanted, but it’s not the result that kills our ambition and our desire to fight until the end,” he added.

While United started the game on the front foot, controlling the ball more and creating a greater number of chances, Spurs took the lead in 27th minute at their backyard.

It was a lackadaisical challenge from Marcus Rashford that paved the way for a counter-attack and allowed Steven Bergwijn to smash the ball past David de Gea.

As for the game, Mourinho added: “I thought we were very, very good, strong, fresh in our attacking units, and then in the last 20 minutes when they started making their changes and pushing a bit more… I didn’t have on the bench Lucas and Dele, or if they’d started, Son or Lamela or Bergwijn, so for us it was difficult. We wanted to press like we did in the first half and our four attacking players, they were a little bit in trouble. Even so, the team fought in the last 20 minutes. The team was very compact and only a very strange penalty gave them a goal.”

The former Manchester United and Chelsea boss also spoke about his experience of playing at an empty Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and said that he had thought the game would be different without fans but felt that it turned out good at the end.

“I think I prepared myself very well, I tried to prepare the players also, we spoke many times about this, spoke many times about instead of thinking about the people not here, thinking about the desire of the people to be here and try to play for all of them.

“I think we managed to play a proper game. I would imagine with fans, I would imagine with more matches before this, the game would be different, but I thought it was a good game in the end,” the 57-year-old added.