Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Football London
Football London
Sport
Rob Guest

The role Christian Eriksen still has to play at Spurs as Harry Kane discusses half-time talk

Harry Kane has praised Christian Eriksen for the role he played in helping Spurs reach the knockout stages of the Champions League.

With his place in Jose Mourinho's team up in the air due to his current contract situation, the Dane was named on the bench for the second successive game but came on in the 29th minute as the new head coach showed his ruthless side by taking off Eric Dier.

The change did have the desired effect as Dele Alli's goal on the stroke of half-time helped the Lilywhites come from 2-0 down to win 4-2.

Praising the pair for their performances in the victory that looked so unlikely with 20 minutes on the clock, Kane stated that Spurs "need everyone" if they want to go far in the competition once again.

"Dele has done great in the last couple of games," he told reporters after the game. "Everyone talks about the old Dele but he has just got to keep doing what he's doing.

"He's a fantastic player, a fantastic guy. It's great to see him scoring goals, assisting goals and running at players.

"Christian came on very early and put some great balls and crosses in and maybe lifted the tempo up a bit and got an assist at the end.

"We need everyone, we need the team to perform if we want to go far in competitions."

With Alli's goal on the stroke of half-time a huge turning point as it gave Spurs hope that they could complete the turnaround, Kane has revealed what Jose Mourinho said at half-time with his team 2-1 down.

"It was calm, scoring just before half-time obviously helped," he added. "We just said 'we can't play any worse than we have done so be calm, have a bit more freedom and energy, get the crowd off their feet'.

"That's what we did, we came out created more chances, took our chances.

"Scoring the second goal early on definitely helped, we were calm, the manager was calm - he knows we can play better than that, we know we can play better than that and we did that in the second half."

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.