Mauricio Pochettino believes that Tottenham Hotspur are still firmly in the Europa League despite loosing 1-0 to KAA Gent in Belgium.

An uncharacteristically limp display from Tottenham meant that Gent go into the second leg of the European tie with a goal advantage, after Jeremy Perbet’s second half strike lead the Belgium side to a 1-0 win.

Tottenham Hotspur will host Gent at Wembley next Thursday and will hope to bounce back from the loss, yet Tottenham’s poor form at Wembley suggest that the task may be harder than it first seems. However, it will not just be Spurs’ Wembley form that will be a problem as the Lilywhites have only registered one win in their last four games.

Still a chance

The manager however strongly believes that Tottenham are still in the competition. He commented that it “is only the first leg the tie is open” and so “we cannot be worried about the result today or the trust of the team”. He added that, “I think we need to go to Wembley and try to make it our home, feel good, put pressure on Gent and try to win the game.

Pochettino went on to praise his players attitude, saying that “the attitude was good and the team tried to win the game” as “in the second half I think we were better, we started better and changed the formation to find a solution and create more chances and create a clear chance to score”.

However, Pochettino also admitted “it wasn’t our best performance”. The Argentine also added that he believes that “Gent from the beginning were super motivated to play against us. I think we coped with that motivation and it’s true it was a difficult game because Gent in the Europa League showed a very good performance.

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