Toby: ‘It’s all in the details’

Toby Alderweireld is maintaining a positive outlook on our Premier League season.

Four games in, we’ve already experienced the highs and lows. A fine 3-1 home win over Aston Villa on the opening day was followed by a hard-earned 2-2 draw away to reigning champions Manchester City, only for a chastening 1-0 home defeat to Newcastle to follow on.

Then came the north London derby. Two goals up inside 40 minutes, we were pegged back to 2-2 but held our ground against an Arsenal side with wind in their sails to take another well-earned point away from the Emirates.

Now on international duty with Belgium, centre-half Toby believes we’re still on track, despite a couple of setbacks.

“We had one very bad result against Newcastle but two very difficult away games as well – we got two points out of them, it’s not a lot but okay, we didn’t lose and now we have to improve our game, start winning and getting points,” said the experienced defender.

“You have to be positive. It’s all in the details. If we were a little bit more clever in the last minute of the first half against Arsenal, I think we go into half-time 2-0 up and we don’t concede two goals. At the end, it was a difficult second half but we defended and if we’d had a little bit more luck we could have won the game as well – Moussa late in the game, Harry against the post. Sometimes you need a little bit of luck but it was another difficult away game on Sunday and another point. Okay, we’d rather have won but you have to take the positives and go again in a couple of weeks.”

Toby’s Belgium now face back-to-back away matches against San Marino and Scotland, where they’ll look to continue their 100 per cent record in Euro 2020 qualifying. Jan Vertonghen – now the most-capped Spurs player ever at international level, having overtaken Pat Jennings’ 75 caps for Northern Ireland during the last round of games in June – is also in the squad.

“We have to get six points out of six in those two fixtures,” he added. “Our aim is to win two games and strengthen first position in the group.”