Alli: Our confidence is shot and we lack fight

DELE ALLI offered a brutal assessment of Tottenham’s failings after they crashed out of the Champions League. Jose Mourinho’s side were beaten 3-0 on the night and 4-0 on aggregate by RB Leipzig and Alli admitted they lacked maturity and fight and that their mentality was not strong enough. He said the team’s confidence was shot and offered an apology to supporters who made the journey to Germany. ‘We have to apologise to the fans who came out here all this way,’ said Alli. ‘They deserve better. ‘We had to show maturity and fight, and we didn’t do that. It’s devastating. After last year, it was a great run, so it is disappointing to go out like that. ‘We had belief before the game and we didn’t perform. This is the Champions League, and if you don’t step up, you’re going to be punished. ‘We have to fight. We can’t hide, we know this hasn’t been a good season for us and we can’t give up. The reality is we are in a bad situation and we have to turn it around and we are the only ones who can do that.’ Tottenham are winless in six games in all competitions. They will end yet another season without a trophy, are seven points adrift of the top four in the Premier League and face Manchester United on Sunday. ‘Confidence is obviously gone,’ said Alli on BT Sport. ‘But it’s a big game at the weekend and we have to pick ourselves up and turn this around. We have to stay together, it’s not down to one player to score goals and another to stop them. It was the whole team. We know it’s not good enough.’ Spurs were without six injured first-teamers but Alli refused to use injuries as an excuse. ‘We still have quality on the pitch,’ he said. ‘We were missing some good players but that happens, that’s football. When that happens this is Tottenham, the players have to step up and we didn’t do that. ‘The mentality, we were second to a lot of balls, even at the start we were bright but to concede those goals shows our mentality wasn’t strong enough.’ Mourinho also thanked the fans and conceded his team faced an uphill struggle to be back in the Champions League next season. ‘With the squad we have at the moment it is going to be very, very difficult,’ he said. ‘Our problems are not going to disappear tomorrow. Every team in the world would struggle with five or six of their most important players missing. It’s as simple as that. ‘All the players on the Leipzig bench would all play at this moment in my team. ‘So that’s a big problem. I know our team will automatically improve next season with these players back but we know we have to improve in other areas. I will not tell you exactly. ‘We have problems — they don’t end with the injuries but no team in the world can cope with such injuries for such a long time.’