A coy Jose Mourinho has blamed a mystery muscle injury as the reason for Gareth Bale missing Tottenham Hotspur's 5-4 FA Cup loss to Everton.

Bale has started only two games and played a meagre 230 minutes in the Premier League since joining Spurs on loan from Real Madrid at the beginning of the season, and was once again missing from Mourinho's team sheet on Wednesday.

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Tottenham keenly felt the absence of the Wales star as Everton secured the extra-time win, and Mourinho once again had to field questions about Bale's availability for his team.

"Well I think it's better for me to say," Mourinho responded when asked about Bale after the match. "So we played against West Bromwich on the Sunday and he didn't play.

"On Monday I was a little bit surprised by him wanting to have a scan because he was not comfortable with some muscular area.

"So he didn't train on Monday, and then on Tuesday he trained with the team, but I was informed that his desire would be to work with the sports science for a couple of days to strengthen that area.

"That's the reason why he's not here."

Mourinho's remarks came just 24 hours after 31-year-old Bale shared a picture of himself training on Instagram.

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Tottenham, who battled back from 3-1 and 4-3 down having taken the lead in the third minute, have now lost four of their last five games.

Mourinho lamented his side's ability to defend, saying that four goals should have been enough to comfortably beaten Everton.

"When you score four goals, you have to win. The way we played, we should win comfortably," Mourinho said.

"Attacking football only wins matches when you don't make more defensive mistakes than what you create.

"We were brave, we create, we were the best team while winning 1-0. But in five minutes it was pom-pom-pom, mistake-mistake-mistake, goal-goal-goal. You fight back, go again, but more mistakes. You fight back again. That was the mouse and the cat. The mouse was our defensive mistake, and the cat was us trying to compensate that by playing well."

Information from Reuters was used in this report.