Tottenham Hotspur boss Mauricio Pochettino admits that Roberto Soldado’s glaring first half miss cost them dearly against Fiorentina last night.

Mario Gomez and Mohamed Salah scored two second-half goals to help Fiorentina to beat Spurs 2-0 on the evening and qualify for the last 16 of the Europa League with an aggregate scoreline of 3-1.




However, before La Viola took the lead, in the first period, Tottenham forward Soldado was played clean though by a sweeping pass from Erik Lamela, but he attempted a square pass to Nacer Chadli and Brazilian goalkeeper Neto gathered the ball.

Pochettino feels that was a crucial moment in the game. He believes things could have been different had Soldado not suffered from indecision and had instead scored to give the lead to Tottenham both in the match and the tie.
 


"It is true that it was key, this action", Pochettino, reflecting on his side's European exit, was quoted as saying by the BBC.

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"You need some luck to score sometimes if you are to win the games.

"In the second half we made some mistakes and we took a risk and Fiorentina scored.”

The Tottenham boss admits that his side didn’t deserve to go though however, as to qualify they needed to score and they didn’t, so the result was justified.

"We played well and dominated the game, but you only deserve to go through to the next round if you score."

Tottenham will now bid to dust themselves off from the defeat in time for Sunday's League Cup final against Jose Mourinho's Chelsea.

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