With Wednesday evening’s victory over Inter Milan keeping Tottenham Hotspurs’ Champions League qualification hopes alive, manager Mauricio Pochettino was in buoyant mood.
With Spurs having the better of the 90 minutes against Inter at Wembley Stadium last night, we deserved the victory that eventually came via substitute Christian Eriksen’s 80th minute winner and back to back Group B wins mean qualification is in our hands.
Standing in the way of that are Barcelona in the next tie and all we need to do is match or better Inter’s result when they face PSV Eindhoven in their next game to ensure we go through to the next stage.
Speaking to Sky Sports as he met with the media post-game yesterday evening, our Argentine gaffer felt we could pull off the unexpected.
“All is possible in football. It will be so tough, but we have belief that we can win. We must show our great levels and to be at our best. We need to have fresh legs and mind, no injuries. We need to manage and rotate the squad. We need to prepare in the best way. No one is going to give you a present in the Champions League – it will be very competitive.”
It’s undoubtedly going to be a tough ask to take victory and against Barca’s quality, maybe all we can do is take the point, but Poch is right in thinking we shouldn’t go into the game with fear or thinking we are all already beaten.
Whatever happens, after a poor Group stage start with disappointments, the players should take credit for turning that around to at least still be in with a shot as that does show character