Borussia Dortmund was the biggest victor in the first legs, justifying its tag as competition favorite with a 3-0 win over a weakened Tottenham team.
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Spurs suffered a 3-0 mauling at the hands of Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of their Europa League Round of 16 clash, leaving their chances of qualifying for the quarter-finals hanging by a thread.
A Marco Reus double and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s header gave the Germans a dominant advantage heading into the second leg at White Hart Lane next week but Cascarino is adamant Pochettino made the correct decision with his team selection ahead of their trip to Aston Villa on Sunday.
One would have thought that their high-intensity style of play would begin to tell in these latter stages of the league season, but, according to Sky Sports, Spurs’ players are running harder and further than they did earlier in the season – attack is the best form of defence, it would seem.
“They need to survive, they are in a very hard position, but we need to show respect and we need to go Sunday and play with full respect to show that we deserve to stay where we are on the table”.
“I like the way they play but I think that it’s a good challenge for us”. We come from a very busy period and we play a lot in different circumstances. Dortmund is just the story of one game.
“It is hard to explain but it’s a bad day and I’m disappointed with our performance”.
The Dortmund manager, Thomas Tuchel, however, expects a close game as his side meets Tottenham for the first time in the Europa league.
“Tottenham against Dortmund could easily be a Champions League game – it’s a big opportunity for us to see where we are at the moment”, Wimmer said. “We’ve noticed their ball recovery is very good and we found that their speed increases this season”.
Borussia are second only to Bayern Munich in Germany, while Tottenham are vying with Leicester City, Arsenal and Manchester City for the Premier Leaguetitle in England. “We haven’t won in our last two league games so hopefully we can get back to a win”.
“I know how hard it is to defend all this individual quality, we did an awesome job in defence”.
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Aubameyang said: “In the end everything became a bit weird, I didn’t really like the way things were done”.
