A Much Needed Win for Tottenham Following Tough Week
Tottenham get a much needed win against Fulham in the FA Cup’s quarter-finals. A win that should boost Spurs’ confidence and morale leading up to Gent on Thursday.
Not much needed to be said about what yesterday’s FA cup match meant to this Tottenham team after two uninspired performances against Liverpool and Gent.
It was obvious that Spurs had to turn things around and with a chance to win a trophy at the end of the year, Mauricio Pochettino’s side put in a good performance that hadn’t be seen since a 4-0 win over West Brom — a month ago.
It was the kind of performance that Harry Kane said was needed.
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“It’s been a tough week, not the best and we wanted to come here, get the win and progress to the next round,” Kane said.
“It was a good performance. I thought we were solid all around the pitch and deserved to win.”
Slow starts against Manchester City, Liverpool and Gent all cost Tottenham, so to see them get on the front foot this time around, it’s not surprising Spurs beat Fulham, as they were able to apply themselves and not let their opponents dictate the pace of the match.
“We’ve been starting slowly in the last month or so,” Harry Kane added. “We got away with it at City [2-2 after being 2-0 down], got punished at Liverpool [0-2] and punished again in Gent [0-1] in mid-week.”
“We wanted to put that right, get on the front foot, press high and win the ball back”.
“We did that and created plenty of early chances, we should have scored a few more but it was a good win in the end.”
Both Kieran Trippier and Jan Vertonghen also stressed how important it was to pick up a win and start off the match with more energy than previously shown in recent weeks.
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“We knew today was a must-win game and we wanted to start bright and sharp, get in their faces and we did that,” Trippier said.
“We regrouped, analysed the game and we knew what we needed to do. We knew it was going to be tough because Fulham are a good side and we needed to start well, get an early goal and keep a clean sheet.”
“The game against Gent was gone the day after. We knew what we needed to do against Fulham and we know what we need to do now against Gent. We’ll take the confidence from this performance into Thursday night.”
“We wanted to get back on track and we did well, we created plenty of chances and everyone was at the top of their game,” Vertonghen stated.
“Fulham had a couple of chances before half-time but other than that we had a very good game. The fans were great from the start until the end as well and now we’re in the quarter-finals.”
Asked about how he thought he did, Jan Vertonghen was just happy to be back.
“It was a great game to come back for. At the end I was a bit tired but it’s good to be back and get 90 minutes straight away – I didn’t expect that but it felt good.”
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Lastly, Harry Winks chimed in with his thoughts on Tottenham’s FA Cup progress so far. As a boyhood supporter of Spurs, this is a trophy that he would love to win. And with Spurs inching closer and closer, Winks said to just take things one game at a time.
“I’d love to win it, it would be absolutely brilliant,” Winks said. “It’s the most prestigious cup in England and a massive chance for us to get some silverware. You’ve got to take it game-by-game but let’s look at the next round and go from there.”