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.
We could, we should, and we deserved to score one more goal to be in a much better position
“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.”
