Date published: Thursday 24th September 2020 10:16
Jose Mourinho has admitted that Tottenham felt a sense of “fear” at one point in their Europa League win over Shkendija.
Tottenham moved one step closer to the Europa League group stage by claiming a comfortable win in the third qualifying round.
It means they now just have to beat Maccabi Haifa in next week’s play-off to reach the groups.
However, it easn’t all plain sailing, as Shkendija struck level briefly in the second half. And Mourinho admits the moment had him worried – although his substitutes helped produce the reaction he hoped for.
He said: “We didn’t play magnificently but we did the job.
“In the first half we were 41 minutes without scoring and then we gave them space to play. In the second half, after our changes, and I like to see players come in and make an impact and the players who came on made a difference.
“We started very strongly and the thought was that we would kill the game but we didn’t. They gave us a difficult match and the fear we felt after the equaliser was fundamental to the team’s reaction and then it was difficult for them to contain our attacking waves.”
Mourinho also spoke about an unusual moment before the game when his goalkeepers noticed the goals were too small.
He explained: “Before the game was a funny situation because my goalkeeper told me the goal was small. I went to see and it was small.
“The goalkeepers spend all their time in them so we know.
“I felt immediately something was wrong and we got the UEFA delegate to come in and it was 5cm too small. We asked for goals of the right dimensions.”