Tottenham head coach Tim Sherwood felt disgraceful pitch at Dnipro Arena played a big part in their 1-0 Europa League round-of-32 first leg defeat to Dnipro on Thursday night, but he guaranteed his side will score in second-leg.
The north Londoners travelled to the Ukraine to face former boss Juande Ramos’ side looking to pick up a positive result to take back to White Hart Lane next week.
However they struggled to get to grips with a very heavy pitch and succumbed to an 81st-minute penalty scored by Liverpool’s January transfer window target Yevhen Konoplyanka after Jan Vertonghen had brought down Brazilian striker Matheus inside the area.
Spurs’ best chance to score came in the 55th minute but Spanish striker Roberto Soldado fired over the bar from close range.
Sherwood defended the player by suggesting the pitch “must have played some part” in his miss, while he described the surface as “possibly the worst pitch I have experienced in a long time.”
However the Spurs chief is confident that the one-goal deficit can be overturned next Thursday and he has vowed that his players will score.
“We could have played better,” he said.
“I didn’t think we were very poor but the disappointment that we never scored and we had some good opportunities to do that.
“We will score at the Lane, guaranteed, but it depends how many we will have to score.”
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