A frank and honest interview from Tim Sherwood

Tim Sherwood rightly tore a strip off his Tottenham Hotspur players following the embarrasing 4-0 defeat at Chelsea.

In a frank and honest post-match interview, Sherwood cited the fact that his squad lacks ‘characters’ and cannot continue to come short against the top teams if we have any hope of playing in the Champions League.

Many Tottenham fans raised their eyebrows when they saw Sherwood’s team selection but in fairness we did well for the first 45 minutes.

“We aren’t going to finish top-four if you can’t beat the top teams. It ain’t going to happen, you’re miles away unless you beat the top teams,” he told Sky Sports after the loss at Stamford Bridge.

“You have to pick up some points. All right, we beat [Man] United and Everton around us, but you can’t rely on rolling over the smaller sides – it does not work out like that. We did all right in patches, but there are too many blips – you are talking about fourth, people at the club, but wake up.”

He said: “The first goal, anyone can slip and it is a bad error, the second one – the penalty and sending-off – it has gone against us unfortunately and the game has gone after that but it still doesn’t legislate for the capitulation. You can’t have that.”

Asked what he put the “capitulation” down to, he answered: “Lack of characters.

“Too many of them are too nice to each other. You need to show a bit more gut and not want to be someone’s mate all the time and it can’t always be me having a pop – they have to drag it out of each other. It hurts me.

“I’m not going to forget this by the time we hit the motorway. Some might – but on to the next match. That is the nature of the game.”

He insists that despite the penalty that should not have been given, the Spurs fans deserved more from what they were given.

“It is not a penalty, and then it is not a sending-off,” added Sherwood, “but the game has gone after that.

“We have a game Thursday in the Europa League (v Benfica) and we have to get out there and show a performance. We owe it to the fans – they were fantastic for us today – but we let them down again on the big occasion.”

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