Tottenham Hotspur welcome Gent to Wembley for the second leg of their Round of 32 Europa League tie on Thursday night and the English club have work to do, if they are to progress to the last 16 of the competition.
Up to this point, Tottenham have had a European season to forget. Mauricio Pochettino’s team were eliminated from the Champions League, having been strongly tipped to qualify from their group. Having dropped into the Europa League, the draw against Gent was not seen as being a difficult tie yet the 1-0 defeat in Belgium last week, has made it tougher than first expected.
It was a poor match for Tottenham, who struggled to get into their stride despite having a very strong team on the pitch. Gent manager, Hein Vanhaezebrouck made several changes to his starting XI but his players seemed hungry and wanted to get forward and win the game more than Tottenham’s. Gent got the only goal of the game when one of the men brought into the team, striker Jeremy Perbet scored on 59 minutes and in truth, Gent should have doubled their lead not long after but Stefan Mitrovic missed a good chance from a corner.
Despite losing the first leg, Tottenham come into this match as the favourites to progress but have not shown anything in European football this season, to suggest they deserve that tag. At Wembley in the Champions League, they lost two of their three group games and failed to keep a clean sheet in any of three, including the victory over CSKA Moscow. This will give Gent the belief they can score a goal in this game, which could be crucial considering Tottenham failed to get an away goal last week.
Gent have lost only one of their last five away Europa League games and will be looking forward to the prospect of playing at Wembley, a venue which seems to inspire the opposition more than it does Tottenham. However, the last truly strong opposition Gent have faced away from home in Europe this season is Shakhtar Donetsk and they lost the game 5-0, so Tottenham know that if they get an early goal, the Belgians can be taken apart.
The overall form of Gent is a bit of a worry and although the 1-1 draw at Standard Liege on the weekend was a decent result, they have won just two of their last six competitive games and sit 8th in the Belgian league. Tottenham are also in a spell of inconsistent form and have won three of their last six games in all competitions, having lost to Gent, Liverpool and been held by Sunderland in recent weeks.
Tottenham certainly have the personnel to turn this tie around and win the match on Thursday night by a big enough margin to qualify. Gent will make things very difficult and look to play on the counter-attack and score an away goal. This could develop into a very tight match and even a 2-1 win for Tottenham, will not be enough to see them through. If Gent score, they could cause a big shock.