Madrid mountain too high for comeback kings Spurs
Reuters - Wednesday 06 April 2011, 08:48
LONDON - Tottenham Hotspur's debut
Champions League season has been a story of unlikely comebacks
but even the staunchest believer will hold little hope they can
recover from Tuesday's 4-0 thrashing by Real Madrid.
Way back in August Spurs, dipped their toe into the
Champions League so tentatively that within 30 minutes of their
qualifying round first-leg match at Young Boys of Berne they
were 3-0 down.
However, setting their tone for the competition, they pulled
two goals back and then won the second leg with a convincing 4-0
scoreline.
In the group stage things were even more dramatic as they
trailed Inter Milan 4-0 at the San Siro only for Gareth Bale's
spectacular hat-trick to make it 4-3 and give them the
confidence to beat the holders 3-1 back in London.
At the Bernabeu on Tuesday the 15th-minute dismissal of
Peter Crouch for two wild sliding tackles made Tottenham's task
near-impossible.
But even if they were to play with 12 men at White Hart Lane
next week another turnaround looks beyond the realms of
possibility.
"You need a miracle playing here with 10, better teams than
us would have struggled," said Spurs manager Harry Redknapp
after the club's heaviest European defeat.
"We've got a mountain to climb but we'll give it a go.
"It's been a great experience and we still have a game to
play at White Hart Lane. It won't be tough to lift them -
what's tough is the injuries."
Spurs have 13 players unavailable, not including Aaron
Lennon, whose last-minute withdrawal through illness on Tuesday
did much to disrupt Redknapp's carefully-designed game plan.
"I've got to try to find 11 for Saturday against Stoke
City," Redknapp said.
Spurs' season, though likely to live long in the folk memory
in the pubs along the Seven Sisters Road, is in danger of
sliding towards an anti-climatic end.
The Champions League adventure looks over and, thanks to
their poor Premier League form in recent seasons, the next one
will not be coming around for at least another year.
Since their famous 1-0 win over AC Milan in the San Siro on
February 15, Spurs have lost to Blackpool and drawn with
Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Ham United and Wigan Athletic -
hardly the stuff of potential European champions.
They now trail fourth-placed Chelsea by five points with
eight games remaining and need to pick up their domestic form to
hold on to fifth and a place in the Europa League next season.
Bale, however, showing the same self-belief and enthusiasm
as in his scintillating wing play this season, has not given up
on either front yet.
"We are not going to sit back and take another beating from
them in the second leg," he said after Tuesday's mauling.
"Hopefully we will win and hopefully that win will be
enough.
"We have to pick ourselves up for the rest of the season. We
can still finish fourth or higher maybe. We have to keep going.
We still have the second leg and the league.
"We are a young team that is learning and I think we can
definitely learn from this."