Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho has hit back at claims his system hurts star striker Harry Kane.

Former Arsenal star Paul Merson claimed Kane would want to leave Spurs because of Mourinho's style of play, but the Portuguese came out firing, reading out the goalscoring stats of all of his former strikers as part of a lengthy defence.

Mourinho declared this morning: “I have to say that I respect a lot people like him and because I respect a lot I want to be nice in my answer.

“I try to be nice and just say something where people can think a little bit.

“I can say, that I had a few strikers that played for me and they are not bad.

“I had one guy called [Didier] Drogba, he played for me for four seasons, he scored 186 goals, which gives an average of 46 goals per season.

“I had one guy that is not also bad, he plays for Juventus now [Cristiano Ronaldo]. He played for me for three seasons, he scored 168 goals, which gives an average of 56 goals per season.

“I had another guy that is not also bad. His name is Karim Benzema. He also played for me for three seasons, he was not always starting because he was young at the time, but he scored for me 78 goals, a 26 goal average per season.

“I had another one, called [Diego] Milito. He played one season for me, he scored 30 goals, he won three title. Of course the average is 30.

“I had another guy, he played for me one and a half seasons because of injury. A tall guy, named Zlatan [Ibrahimovic]. He scored 58 goals, which gives a 29 average."

He finished a long answer by saying: "Dear Paul, I have respect for you but I think Harry Kane has no problems at all to score goals in my teams."