Former Tottenham Hotspur and England winger Chris Waddle was on pundit duty last night for Spurs’ second leg Round of 16 clash with Borussia Dortmund out in Germany.
Going into the tie at the Signal Iduna Park, we already had a first leg 3-0 aggregate lead following goals from Son Heung-Min, Jan Vertonghen and Fernando Llorente, so most fans were probably looking at the performance rather than the result given recent Premier League disappointments.
We weren’t back at our best, but we did enough with a solitary effort from Harry Kane making it 1-0 on the night and 4-0 on aggregate (our only effort on target across the 90) but it was a gutsy and organised display from the side as the hosts threw the proverbial kitchen sink at us, especially in the opening 45 minutes.
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live Waddle said of the showing.
“After the first 35 minutes it could have been different. But when called upon, Hugo Lloris made some fantastic saves. The back three were really solid tonight as well. Tottenham changed the system to 5-4-1 at half-time and looked much better and more comfortable. Dortmund ran out of steam and lost confidence after Harry Kane tucked away a wonderful finish. Tottenham have played the two games very, very well.”
Difficult to disagree. The season of 2018/19 has been about all or nothing with our lack of ability to draw, but it’s also been about grinding out results and digging in, and last night was no different.
Players step up in different ways, last night, I for one, am applauding.
Final 8:
Ajax
Tottenham
Schalke or Manchester City
Atletico Madrid or Juventus
Manchester United or PSG
Lyon or Barcelona
Roma or Porto
Liverpool or Bayern Munich