Tottenham Hotspur captain, Hugo Lloris, has reacted to the heartbreaking draw against Sporting Lisbon last night, as well as the cup final away to Marseille next week.
Spurs went into the game against the Portuguese side knowing that a win, plus Eintracht Frankfurt beating Marseille, would be enough to crown them champions of Group D.
And with 95 minutes on the clock, it seemed as though that was on the cards after Harry Kane smashed home an injury-time winner for the Lilywhites in front of a packed home crowd.
Unfortunately, VAR then spent the next five minutes checking the goal and decided that Kane was in an offside position from Emerson Royal’s headed pass, something that appeared controversial after replays were shown on TV.
Lloris chose to reflect on the game positively, hinting that Spurs would have won if they had played as well in the first half as they did in the second. He also labelled next week’s game against Marseille as a final for the North London side.
He said (Evening Standard): “There are two ways to reflect about the game. The one I prefer is to say if we had played the first half in the same way as the second — with the same energy, with the same willingness to go forward, to press the opponent and be very dominant — probably the score would have been different.
“The other way to reflect on the game is the goal disallowed in the last minute. Everyone can have their own opinion about the decision and the action.
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“We don’t want to give up and I liked the response of the team in the second half. The last two games had referee decisions which were not on our side, but we will carry on until the World Cup break.
“Even if we have to suffer, we have to go through and to finish. Like every team, playing every three days you cannot play 90 minutes with intensity, so you miss 20 to 30 minutes in a game.
“[In that period] we have to be more cautious and try to avoid conceding chances. But that is high-level football. It is just a period we have to deal with and go through and hopefully we will finish this period with better feelings.”
On Marseille he added: “It is going to be like a final. Even if we have a small advantage, because with a draw it will be enough to go through. We need to use our head but also play with your feelings and heart and go with everything, because every detail matters.”
Spurs Web Opinion:
As Lloris says, you can’t focus on the negatives in this sport. You have to take positives from every game and just work to improve wherever you fell short. Yes, Spurs were robbed of the win a little, but you could also argue they didn’t play well enough to truly deserve it.
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