Harry Kane has stated that it was "not a night to get down about" following Tottenham's 1-0 defeat against AC Milan in the first leg of their Champions League Round of 16 tie. Making a nightmare start to the two-legged affair with Brahim Diaz putting the Rossoneri ahead with only seven minutes on the clock, Spurs controlled the game for long periods after that but did nothing of real note to trouble AC shot-stopper Ciprian Tatarusanu.
Tipped to get something at the San Siro given AC's current form after they came into the showdown with one win from their last eight games, it was always vital for Tottenham to ensure that they remained in the tie going into the second leg at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in three weeks' time. That is very much the case after the opening 90 minutes of the contest, with Spurs still in a reasonable position to progress to the quarter-finals despite the Italian side having the advantage.
"Yeah. We're disappointed of course. Whenever you lose a game, there's always disappointment but it was a tough game, away from home, against a good side, in the San Siro, good atmosphere," said Kane after the 1-0 defeat when asked if Tottenham are very much in the tie. "It's a difficult place to play and I thought we definitely controlled the game really well in spells, we just lacked a bit of quality in their final third. But for sure we go away knowing there's a lot to play for."
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He added: "It will still be a tough game, we know that. We're playing a good team but we felt like we controlled the game well and felt like we just lacked a bit of spark. Hopefully we can find that at home. We'll go away, assess it and things can we improve on, because they still had a couple of chances but overall it's not a night to get down about. We have to keep our heads high and look forward to the next one."
Key to Tottenham overturning the one-goal deficit will be seeing an upturn in form in attack after only managing three shots on target at the San Siro. Tottenham have four Premier League games on the agenda before the sides meet again, thus giving Antonio Conte's men ample time to rediscover their rhythm and maintain the levels they showed in Milan as they look to put things right after the "unacceptable" hammering at Leicester City..
"Yeah I think so. In football you can win or lose games. The fight we showed today is the team we want to be," admitted the England captain. "When we think about the Leicester game, that's unacceptable [in terms of] how we want to be as a team. We didn't show enough fight, enough passion, enough desire.
"We did that today. OK, you can lose the game but as long as we have that togetherness and fight amongst the squad, we should win more than we lose."
Ahead of the game in his pre-match press conference, Conte suggested that some of his players "collapse" under pressure given their up-and-down form. Admitting that the manner of the defeat at Leicester was what hurt the head coach the most, Kane now wants the team to repeat the levels they displayed at the San Siro on a regular basis.
"We haven't won a trophy for a long time. We've been in good moments, we've been close but for one reason or another we haven't achieved what we wanted to achieve," said the striker. "Leicester was disappointing because we were coming off the back of three wins in a row, a really good win against City and it was really the time to put our foot on the pedal, climb up the league and see what happens.
"To lose that type of game in the manner that we lost it was what hurt the most and I know that's what hurt the boss the most. So hopefully that's behind us and we don't have any more performances like that. We can still lose games but we need to make sure we show the side that we showed today. That should stand us in good stead."
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