Add as preferred source on Google

Despite Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho fielding a weaker team on paper for a Carabao Cup fixture on Tuesday night, his side reached the quarter-finals of the competition by beating London rivals Chelsea.

Spurs are midway through a crazy schedule of four games in eight days and turn their attention to a pivotal Europa League play-off tie against Maccabi Hafia on Thursday night.

The North London club go into the match after beating Chelsea 5-4 on a penalty shootout, with the match finishing 1-1 after 90 minutes.

Erik Lamela’s late equaliser cancelled out Timo Werner’s first-half strike and it was a much improved second-half performance from Spurs, as they decided to press higher and be more aggressive.

Ex-Spurs duo Jermaine Jenas and Mich Hazard were both full of praise on Twitter after the midweek cup victory.

TBR’s View:

With Chelsea naming a fairly strong XI on Tuesday night, it looked like Spurs were up against it to qualify and understandably the priority this week is to make sure the club reaches the group stages of the Europa League.

But there were a number of impressive individual performances for Mourinho to take note of and several have done their chances of more game-time no harm.

Goalscorer Lamela was nuisance all night for Chelsea’s backline with his work-rate in the final third in an unfamiliar striker position, while new left-back signing Sergio Reguilon looked the part and midfielder Tanguy Ndombele continued his revival under Mourinho.