Sissoko on 'unbelievable' Jan and Son

Moussa Sissoko was full of praise for Jan Vertonghen and Heung-Min Son following their standout performances in Wednesday night's 3-0 Champions League Round of 16, first leg win over Borussia Dortmund.

Sonny fired us into the lead on 47 minutes at Wembley as he volleyed in Jan’s inch-perfect cross before the Belgian international added one of his own to double the lead on 83 minutes, with Fernando Llorente heading home three minutes later to round off the victory.

Sonny’s finish was his ninth goal in 11 games against die Schwarzgelben and his fourth in as many games as he continued his fine vein of form since returning from the Asian Cup in late January. Meanwhile, Jan’s strike was his first-ever goal in the Champions League for us and his first in all competitions since our opening day Premier League triumph over Newcastle United at St James’ Park. 

“We know Sonny is a really important player for us,” French international Moussa explained. “In the last few months, he has done really well and has scored in nearly every game, so we are really happy to have him with us.

“Jan also had an unbelievable performance - a nice cross (for Son’s opener) and then a good goal for himself. I think we can all be proud of our performance because we showed character and showed that we wanted to win."

The performances by the pair capped off a superb team performance in a high stakes European clash.

Our Bundesliga visitors showed their quality in the first half and could have been in front on the stroke of half-time had Hugo Lloris not produced a superb reflex save to keep out Dan-Axel Zagadou’s powerful header.

In the second period, however, we turned the tie in our favour with a commanding display that gives us a healthy advantage heading into the return leg next month at Signal Iduna Park - a game in which Moussa knows we must keep our focus to make sure we progress to the quarter-finals.

“Yes, it was an amazing result,” he added. “We knew we were playing against a really good team. I think the first half was tight, no-one could create chances but in the second half we started much better than we had in the first and we managed to score the first goal right at the beginning of that second period.

“We know that against every team we play that to score the first goal is very important and the game becomes more open after that. We then know we have the quality to score more goals after that and that is what we did, so we’re very happy with that result. 

“The next game will be tough, playing away where they have a massive crowd, but from the beginning, we have to be very serious and take this game like it's 0-0 and try to win the game. That is how we will approach it.”