Thu 11 March 2021, 23:07
Tottenham HotspurJose Mourinho felt we deserved more than our 2-0 victory in the first leg of our UEFA Europa League round of 16 tie against Dinamo Zagreb.
Harry Kane scored a goal in each half to secure the advantage ahead of next week’s second leg in Croatia (18 March, 5.55pm UK). The first came after a mazy run from Erik Lamela, who struck the post and Harry was there to tap home the rebound. The second was a trademark shift and snapshot after Kevin Theophile-Catherine failed to clear Serge Aurier’s cross.
That took the striker’s club record European goals tally to 38, and he went close to claiming a hat-trick in the second half. Gareth Bale and Carlos Vinicius also had late chances, but the third goal proved elusive.
“To win 2-0 at home in the first leg is never a bad result theoretically, but we could, we should, and we deserved to score one more goal to be in a much better position,” reflected Jose. “For it to be a good result, we need to qualify.
“I believe that the 1-0 was the kind of result they would have liked to take home. They did that in the second half, then with the 2-0 they wanted a goal, and they could in that corner (a rare chance in the the second half) and that would have been a very strange result for what happened in the game.
“But, sometimes, it’s better, a short result, because you keep the focus, you keep the concentration for the second leg, so we have to go there and we cannot defend the advantage, because that’s a small advantage to defend, we have to go there and try to win the game.”
