Confidence a problem admits Pochettino

Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino has admitted his team’s confidence may have taken a dip after watching them succumb to their second defeat in a week.

After Liverpool ended their 11-game unbeaten run with a 2-0 win at Anfield at the weekend, an out-of-sorts Spurs were dealt a blow in another competition when they were beaten 1-0 at Gent in the Europa League last-32 first leg.

Jeremy Perbet scored the winner for the Belgians just before the hour mark, shortly after Harry Kane had struck the outside of a post and Mousa Dembele scuffed wide when well placed.

Pochettino told BT Sport 3: “Until the Liverpool game we are on a good run. It’s true that maybe our confidence has dropped a little bit but today was a different competition and we tried to win the game, we tried to find the way to score goals.

“We have some clear chances to score and we are disappointed because we had a lot of opportunities, two or three very clear, before we concede a goal.

“It’s true that maybe it was not a good performance. It wasn’t the best game but we created chances to try to score but we can not score.”

Spurs will look to overturn the deficit in next week’s second leg at Wembley.

Pochettino added: “The tie is open now. It’s not only 90 minutes, it’s two games and that was the first leg.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for us to try to put pressure on the opponent and then to demonstrate that we can win and we can play well at Wembley.”

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