Pochettino: We must show Dortmund defeat was an accident

Tottenham head coach Mauricio Pochettino wants his team to prove last week's 3-0 defeat to Borussia Dortmund was a one-off on Thursday.

The first leg of the Europa League last-32 contest proved a one-sided affair, as Pochettino opted to rest a number of first-choice players and Dortmund ran riot at Signal Iduna Park.

However, the Argentinian has urged his players to respond at White Hart Lane.

"Our mentality needs to be right. We need to show that last Thursday was an accident," Pochettino said at Wednesday's pre-match news conference.

"For me sometimes it is difficult, but I accept the criticism. If you win you are a genius, if not you are a disaster. 

"It's important to keep everyone motivated. They are all important for me and I believe in all of them. Sometimes we rotate and sometimes maybe I have made mistakes. We analyse our decisions a lot and I always think we can do better.

"For that we are always open to learning but I believe in all the players, all the squad."

Title-chasing Tottenham resume Premier League action on Sunday when they host AFC Bournemouth.

Spurs sit second in the table, five points adrift of Leicester City, but Pochettino is hopeful they can still catch Claudio Ranieri's men.

"We are in a moment where we can dream and we can think about everything. We have eight league games to play so we can't we dream now," he added.

"It's important to dream to build in your mind that maybe you can win or achieve something important. From the start we focused on different things to build the structure and try to arrive in the position we find ourselves in now. We need to believe and to do that we need to dream, too."