MORE EURO BLUES AS SPURS LOSE IN GENT:
Boss cursing as his men don’t man-up again
MAURICIO POCHETTINO might well have said something pretty similar to the name of one of Gent’s defenders after another night of frustration.
Tottenham have hit an illtimed sticky patch and it continued against Thomas Foket and Co last night, with the Belgians securing a slender advantage to take into next week’s Wembley return.
After a brilliant run of results in December and January, Spurs’ form has all of a sudden deserted them.
And they lost for the second game running in Belgium – they have never won in four away matches there – failing to score in open play for the fourth successive game.
Pochettino said: “Good and bad things happen. We’ve now started a bad period. It’s true, it wasn’t our best performance.”
After failing to show up at Liverpool on Saturday, Spurs were trying to get back on the bike in the city overrun with them and also famous for being the birthplace of Sir Bradley Wiggins.
But the wheels came off again against the side in yellow jerseys and Spurs now have an uphill climb to reach the last 16.
Pochettino named a near full-strength team in the hope of getting a big part of the job done in Belgium but the plan didn’t come off. The visitors were disjointed against Gent, struggled to create clear chances and again looked uncertain at the back.
The spark they were showing going forward only a few weeks ago has disappeared but boss Pochettino insisted: “It’s not about confidence.”
Mid-table Gent certainly looked full of confidence and gave their boisterous home crowd plenty to shout about with their expansive first-half football.
Spurs produced little to silence them with Harry Kane feeding off scraps and only Dele Alli going close.
A half-time change to a 3-5-2 appeared to spark Spurs into life and Kane hit the post on the turn in the 49th minute.
But they were caught out against the run of play when Jeremy Perbet converted from close range after Ben Davies failed to cut out Danijel Milicevic’s cross. Pochettino’s men were grateful to Hugo Lloris their second-leg task was not even greater, after the French keeper produced a brilliant finger-tip stop to turn Milicevic’s drive onto the post.
Gent’s fans marked the fulltime whistle with a chorus of ‘Que sera sera, we’re going to Wembley’ and they celebrated their surprise victory like they had won a final at the famous arena.
Boss Hein Vanhaezebrouck said: “Going to Wembley is mythical. The history in that stadium... We’ve made the return game very interesting.”