Alli reveals what helped Spurs beat City in Champions League

Tottenham will have been disappointed to have lost their Premier League encounter against Manchester City on Saturday. Phil Foden scored the only goal of the game as the Cityzens won 1-0. However, Spurs arguably had the better week of the two sides. Just a few days earlier, they eliminated City from the Champions League to advance to the semi-finals of Europe’s premier club competition for the first time since 1962.

Earlier this season, Spurs looked as though they were out of the competition, having only claimed one point from their first three group games. However, they managed to turn things around and have since managed to eliminate both Borussia Dortmund and City from the competition.

Spurs are now set to face off against Ajax Amsterdam in the semi-finals of the Champions League, with the first leg of the tie set to be played at the end of this month in North London. Pochettino’s side will be the favourites to advance to the final of this season’s Champions League, where they will face off against either Barcelona or English rivals Liverpool.

On paper, the Lilywhites do have a better side than the Eredivisie giants. Ajax, however, can never be taken lightly, especially after they managed to eliminate both Real Madrid and Juventus from the competition.

While reflecting on his team’s achievement, Dele Alli emphasised that players from his team who played during the deep stages of last summer’s World Cup would have benefited. Nine players from Spurs’ first team competed in the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup, while the likes of Davinson Sanchez and Christian Eriksen both competed in the knockout rounds with Colombia and Denmark, respectively.

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Speaking to The Mirror, Alli said: “I think it’s definitely the case that what happened at the World Cup has helped us as a team.

“We got a lot of experience from the tournament, in different situations, winning and losing. With that experience, we have begun to show that we are learning – and that’s what has happened in the Champions League.

“Each season we are improving – in both the Premier League and the Champions League. We are heading in the right direction and we have got to keep doing that.

“When I first came to Spurs, we had a great team, great players – but maybe we didn’t have the experience we needed when we got to this point of the season. But, by sticking together and having tasted various experiences, we are just getting better and better.”

Featured image credit: Tomasz Baranowski from Lelystad, Holland [CC BY 2.0]