Outplayed by Fiorentina at this stage in 2015, Spurs reached the last 16 last season, but inevitably paid a heavy price for choosing to take on a superior Borussia Dortmund with a weakened side. “Only for one year and half he has played in Tottenham in the Premier League”.
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DF Eric Dier, 5 – Looked unconvincing and defended poorly when Gent scored their late goal.
Not that they could blame the stadium for this defeat.
“I’m very proud of the performance and it’s just a shame we didn’t play well in the first leg”.
Another factor to consider is how far up the priority list this fixture is in N17 (or should that be HA9?). Kyle Walker and company are far out of the Premier League title race, but they’re still holding down one of the last top four slots, one point ahead of Liverpool. He’s obviously very disappointed that he didn’t get the free kick, but to react in the way he did, that’s not on, it’s a leg breaker.
An away goal for Gent would leave Spurs needing to score three to stay in a tournament which appeared to offer them a realistic chance of silverware, although they are also in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.
“We don’t know what we are doing next season, so we want to make it as good for us as possible and win as many games as we can there and get that confidence going”, said the 23-year-old.
While clearly in the box seat, the Ukrainians still have work to do which should ensure boss Paulo Fonseca – yet to taste defeat after 26 games in the job – names a strong team. There have been other stadiums where we have played badly against teams as well. When they’re European fixtures, it’s even harder to win. “It’s important for us tomorrow to keep the balance in between attacking and defence because it’s only 1-0 after the first leg”.
“When we started against Gent, if you only watch 50 seconds you don’t need to be a genius – there was a problem because we were not focused”.
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They have won only two out of their last thirteen away matches in all competitions and have lost seven of them.
