Tottenham's Toby Alderweireld bemoans 'difficult night' against Borussia Dortmund

1/11
Sam Long10 March 2016

Toby Alderweireld has acknowledged Tottenham endured a "difficult night" during their 3-0 defeat to Borussia Dortmund at the Westfalenstadion.

Mauricio Pochettino named an under strength side in first leg of the Europa League last-16 clash and Spurs struggled for long periods, despite making a bright start.

Dortmund took control of the game early on and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang powered home the opening goal just after the half hour mark.

Thomas Tuchel's side did not take their foot off the gas and will take a comfortable cushion into the return leg thanks to a second-half brace from Marco Reus.

Tottenham's defence has rarely been breached with such regularity this season and Alderweireld is keen to turn his attention to Sunday's league meeting with Aston Villa.

"We started well but they took control and it was a difficult night for us," the Belgian told the club's official website.

"For now we have to focus on an important game at [Aston] Villa on Sunday and then we'll think about the return leg."

Kevin Wimmer echoed his defensive partner's sentiments and admitted Spurs struggled to not only win possession but also retain it against Dortmund.

"It was not easy - from the beginning they put a lot of pressure on us," he told BT Sport.

"We always had to defend. When we got the ball we always lost the ball easily too.

"When you play like this in away games against teams like Dortmund it's going to be very, very hard."

The north Londoners have a mountain to climb if they are to overhaul Dortmund's lead at White Hart Lane and avoid a premature exit next week.

"It would have been very good for us if we had scored one goal at least tonight," added Wimmer.

"Maybe if we score an early goal [in the second leg] you never know what's going to happen.

"But it's going to be very tough for us to turn this around."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in