Last season may have ended in bitter disappointment for Tottenham Hotspur, but it has created an enormous sense of optimism around White Hart Lane for the coming Premier League campaign – which kicks off for the Lilywhites with a 3pm visit to Everton on Saturday. Sometimes it’s hard because for that creative player, sometimes you’re a little bit more sloppy in that aspect of football. “That has got to go to the back of the mind and focus on this season”.
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However, the 23-year-old is confident Tottenham will recover.
“We want to be better and improve”, he said.
Tottenham Hotspur will be expecting to challenge for top four again after finishing third last season, but will now have to deal with juggling Champions League.
“I never hear the manager before the game”, he said.
The Dutch forward went close to winning it late on, but his effort was saved by the excellent Maarten Stekelenburg, while Lamela also saw a shot deflected on to the bar as Spurs pushed for all three points.
Spurs managed to claw their way back into the game when Lamela headed the ball into the far corner of the net after getting on the end of Walker’s inch-perfect cross.
The hosts ought to have doubled their lead in first-half stoppage-time, when Deulofeu seized on a poor backpass from Danny Rose and raced clear of Jan Vertonghen, but was denied by a smart save from Vorm.
Speaking before his teams clash against Everton on Saturday, the Argentine expressed his desire to “compete better and achieve another level” than last season and that the teams mentality, preperation and new additions will be key to this. “We wanted to start fast but we did not do that”.
Spurs, for a long time, were Leicester City’s only real title threat, and after that subsided, they looked set to beat vicious rivals Arsenal in the league for the first time in over two decades. We pressed them, did not give any chances away and I think we had to win. “We just had to be quicker switching the ball and I thought we did that in the second half”.
And it nearly brought an instant result, with Janssen running along the channel before cutting the ball back to Alli who could only fire over from a good position for Tottenham. “There are a lot of clubs who have bought a lot of players and felt like they needed to strengthen their squad”. It is an experience I have got to learn from.
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‘We know what we did wrong, we have to work on that for this season and hopefully we will do that and do well’. But in the second half there was a lot more energy and we always had different options and ways to play.
