Mourinho: Bale would start every game if he was fully fit

Gareth Bale would start every game for Tottenham if his fitness allowed, according to José Mourinho.

Bale came off the bench at half-time for Spurs at West Ham on Sunday, delivering the corner for Lucas Moura to head home before hitting the crossbar himself.

However, he was not able to avert a 2-1 defeat for Mourinho's men – their fifth loss in six as part of a dismal run in the Premier League.

Real Madrid loanee Bale has been restricted to two top-flight starts since making his Tottenham return last September and Mourinho felt unable to add to that number despite the Wales star's goalscoring contribution against Wolfsberger in the Europa League on Thursday.

"I know his quality. I cannot say everything to you, I shouldn't. I don't want," he told Sky Sports when discussing Bale's performance after the match.

"I believe as a coach I don't have to speak so much about the situation, but with a Gareth Bale completely fit and ready to play 90 minutes of every game, of course he would [play].

"We are trying everything with him to recover him to be at a good level. To play 65 minutes like he did Thursday then today he couldn't start the game today, he wouldn't have 90 minutes to give us.

"But I am happy because we know what he brings, he brings his quality.

"[He was] very unlucky [when he hit the crossbar] because in that situation we had a double shot to score but we didn't."

Mourinho: "It is very difficult to think about the top four"

Spurs are languishing in eighth position, with West Ham now nine points better off in fourth having played a game more.

"Before the game I was not looking to the table, I was looking to the game and the objective was to win," Mourinho said, having seen Tottenham's hopes of Champions League qualification suffer another body blow.

"It is very difficult to think about the top four. The top four, five, six teams are getting points. It will be very, very hard. The Europa League is a great motivation to get a Champions League spot and a trophy at the same time.

"The boys fight and when the team fights you can believe good things can happen."

Goals inside the first five minutes of either half from Michail Antonio and Jesse Lingard scuppered Spurs at London Stadium but Mourinho felt fortune did not smile on his side.

"I feel the result should have been a different one, especially in the second half," he added. "That is my feeling and a little bit of deja vu.

"Their defensive line was brilliant. Their centre-backs gave us a very difficult match. We started the game with a mistake and started the second half with another one.

"The team in the second half was trying absolutely everything. We had the chances, hitting the post, great crosses across the face of goal. We had easy shooting positions to score so we should have scored more goals.

"We were the team that tried to play but the boys were not lucky."