Mourinho will have problems on his hands if he continues to scold his stars

How current of his Tottenham stars, Jose Mourinho said, when he spotted them on their phones in the dressing after a hard-fought victory at Burnley.

Presumably he would have expected to have seen them discussing the match, or perhaps even celebrating together after such a laborious 90 minutes.

So of course to illustrate how that would've never been the case in the good old days Mourinho made his point on Instagram.

'A sign of the times,' he wrote. A harmless, tongue-in cheek joke.

But Mourinho should exercise caution when he uses social media. It's one thing to poke fun at your players and then another to use it as a tool to pull them into line.

After watching his side slump to a shock defeat against Royal Antwerp on Thursday night, he took to Instagram again, writing: 'Bad performances deserve bad results. Hope everyone on this team bus is as upset as I am. Tomorrow 11 AM training.'

The fear with Mourinho is that he will alienate his players if he continues to make his grievances public like this.

He did it at Manchester United. He pilloried Paul Pogba and shattered Luke Shaw's confidence with his non-stop negative comments.

Eventually United players grew tired of having the finger pointed at them and we all know how that ended.

Mourinho has not been as cut-throat as he was at United but he is in danger of creating a disconnect at Tottenham too, especially if this becomes his new way to scold his players.

A quick flick through his Instagram reveals that this is a platform he typically uses to praise his side, so the sudden change of tone will be disconcerting for them.

Former Arsenal defender and Sportsmail columnist Martin Keown raised concerns about Mourinho's behaviour after their embarrassing defeat in Belgium.

'I'm not happy with Mourinho being so public. Save it for the dressing room,' he told BT Sport.

'Is this how we're going to communicate [over Instagram]? If you're going to talk to me, talk to my face. Don't do posts.

'Keep it in house, it's a bit childish what you're hearing. Players have to keep their mouths shout, but he can say whatever he wants publicly. I would rather keep it in the dressing room. I'm not sure that's healthy.'

If Mourinho didn't learn that throwing scathing criticisms at his own players does not encourage positive responses then he should know by now with Tanguy Ndombele speaking out this week on the impact being publicly slammed by his boss last season had on him.

'His words didn't hurt me. They didn't necessarily motivate me either,' the midfielder admitted.

'It was just something that I assimilated and took on board. Of course it's not something that you like to hear, those sort of words, but that was last season and we are looking to the future.'

If Mourinho continues down this path and taking swipes at his players on social media, he may not be a part of Tottenham's for much longer.