Football
Dan Kilpatrick, Tottenham Correspondent 7y

Tottenham have 'recovered' in time for Christmas fixtures - Pochettino

LONDON -- Mauricio Pochettino says Tottenham have recovered their winning feeling after scoring eight goals in consecutive victories against Swansea and CSKA Moscow.

Spurs followed Saturday's 5-0 win with a 3-1 victory over CSKA in the Champions League -- their first win at Wembley Stadium in seven matches -- to seal a place in the Europa League.

Following the 2-0 win over Manchester City on Oct. 2, Spurs won just once in 10 league matches and managed just four goals from open play in that time.

"I think we have recovered. We struggled in the last month and a half because we had some problems. We have all the squad almost fully fit. We have recovered the feeling that maybe we lost in the last month and a half," Pochettino told a postmatch news conference.

"That situation arrived in a busy period for us, a key period in the Champions League, but that is normal. We need all of the players fit to be strong and compete in tough competitions like the Premier League and the Champions League.

"Now, you can feel the team has recovered that feeling we can win every game. I think we crossed that line that was very difficult for us. The team is with full confidence, trust in ourselves again.

"Now we have a good opportunity to focus on the Premier League and FA Cup. It's an important period we have ahead.

"It was important for us to change the bad feeling after Monaco and Leverkusen. It was very important to recover. I think we are playing better and starting to show our real quality.

"I want to say thank you to our supporters, they were brilliant again. It shows how big our club is after going out of the Champions League that there was 60,000 people here tonight. Thank you to them from my staff and all of the players."

Toby Alderweireld returned from two months injured to play 30 minutes against the Russians, Harry Kane scored to make it seven goals in six games and both Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen were superb.

Spurs can move nine points clear of Manchester United with a win at Old Trafford on Sunday and Pochettino is aiming to close the gap on the league's early front-runners and triumph in the Europa League.

"I think the gap is not too much. Maybe a little bit more with Chelsea but not Liverpool, City and Arsenal. We struggled in a key moment in the Champions League, Harry Kane had 10 games out, difficult to rotate, difficult to keep consistency," he said.

"It's important to make Wembley our home. The Europa League is an important competition to go further, why not believe we can win that competition? The only disappointment is we didn't go to the next round of the Champions League."

^ Back to Top ^