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Glenn Hoddle claimed that Tottenham hugely missed Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg on Thursday night after an embarassing exit from the Europa League.

Spurs travelled to Dinamo Zagreb with a two-goal advantage from the first leg in the Europa League last-16 tie.

But the North London club remarkably suffered a 3-0 loss against the Croatian opposition on Thursday.

Mislav Orsic was the match-winner for Dinamo, with his two second-half goals levelling the tie at 2-2 on aggregate and sending it to extra time.

The 28-year-old attacker then popped up with the winning goal in the second half of extra time, as he capped off a superb driving run forward with a clinical finish.

Jose Mourinho was appointed Spurs boss to win silverware, and the Europa League was a competition they were tipped as being real challengers for.

Hoddle explained in his post-match analysis that the absence of central midfielder Hojbjerg proved crucial.

The 25-year-old was suspended for the Zagreb tie after his yellow card in the first leg, which proved extremely costly.

“There wasn’t anyone on the night who was going to say ‘I’m going to take responsibility here, I’m going to change this game for us’. Everyone was looking at each other, and when it happens it’s a disaster for a team,” Hoddle told BT Sport 1 (8:30pm, 18 March).

“You need leadership. Hojbjerg not playing tonight just shows what they do need, he’s had a great season. Suspended, massive miss because I think the key goal he would’ve been in that defensive position. But I think he’s one that actually leads, he’s the one that’s actually always talking to players and demanding. They missed him big time they really did.”

TBR’s View:

If you do look around the Spurs squad, there are not a bunch of names screaming out leaders.

Most teams that win trophies are driven by a handful of focused individuals that act as big leaders in the dressing room, but it doesn’t look there are enough of those right now.

Tonight’s victory is going to be an extremely tough one for supporters to take.

Unfortunately, this season looks like imploding very quickly unless they can string a great Premier League run together, and pull off a shock performance to beat in-form Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final.