Mourinho urges Southgate not to over-play Kane in trio of England fixtures

José Mourinho has lent on Gareth Southgate not to over-play Harry Kane in England’s upcoming triple bill of fixtures. The Tottenham manager is preparing for their Europa League play-off at home to Maccabi Haifa on Thursday night – a vital game for sporting and financial reasons – and he is likely to start with his centre-forward.

Spurs are mired in an unforgiving run of matches, with Haifa their sixth in 14 days, and Manchester United await on Sunday, a game which Kane would also expect to start.

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Mourinho has been dismayed by the congestion and that extends to the international window, in which England face Wales in a friendly next Thursday and then Nations League ties against Belgium and Denmark. “Three games are obviously too much, especially for my players,” he said, and made the point that if he could resist the urge to start with Kane – as he did in the Carabao Cup shootout win over Chelsea on Tuesday – then the England manager ought to be able to do so.

“When Kane is fit he should start every game for Tottenham but he didn’t [against Chelsea],” Mourinho said. “So I think this is the point. When you have such a player and you want to win every match, you play him, but you just can’t do it. I believe that Gareth [Southgate] and Steve [Holland, the assistant manager] care about the players and I don’t think they want to be connected with something that can be a consequence of this week and the three international matches.

“I don’t speak with Gareth or Steve. I just let them do the job in the way they want to do it with the freedom they deserve. Hopefully Gareth and Steve understand what happened with Tottenham this week and they respect the players. That’s just my hope but I’m not going to call or ask or beg.”

Southgate is expected to recall a clutch of players who missed the September get-together because of injury, including Ben Chilwell, James Maddison, Harry Winks and Marcus Rashford. Harry Maguire is poised to be included but there will be no place for Mason Greenwood or Phil Foden.

Ryan Giggs, the Wales manager, has not called up Gareth Bale as the Spurs loanee enters the final phase of his recovery from a knee injury. Mourinho said that Bale is targeting a return in the West Ham game after the international break. He also reported that Son Heung-min, who is out with a hamstring problem, has an outside chance of featuring at United.

Spurs are continuing to chase a new centre-half and centre-forward. On the latter, Mourinho said he is optimistic. “More than that, the feeling I like is that we are trying everything to do it,” he added.