Toby happy to keep his focus after "strange" week
Mon 17 February 2020, 11:30|
Tottenham Hotspur
Toby Alderweireld had to travel eight hours from Belgium to report for duty at Villa Park following the birth of his son – but for 18 first-half minutes, his mood must have taken a dip.
After a mix-up between him and Hugo Lloris, the central defender inadvertently put the ball into his own net to gift Aston Villa a ninth-minute advantage in our first match back after the winter break.
Crucially, though, he kept his concentration and, in the 27th minute, redeemed himself with a superb strike at the other end to restore parity. We pushed on to win 3-2 thanks to a brace from Heung-Min Son, with the decisive goal coming deep into stoppage time as Villa finally caved in to our heavy second-half pressure.
By his own admission, it was a whirlwind week, but when all was said and done, the Belgian international defender was relieved to see us emerge with the victory.
“The last couple of days have been strange for me – the birth of my son, I haven’t slept, yesterday, eight hours travel to get here and then it was difficult for me, I made a mistake with the wind and everything, okay, that can happen, but I’m very happy I could help a little bit with the goal,” he smiled.
“Even if there are difficult moments like for myself, I made a mistake, but I’m happy that we kept focus and tried to help, tried to do something and fortunately I scored the goal.
“We could have put the game to bed a lot earlier, I think. It’s a good thing that we created so many chances, that’s positive. (Last-minute goals) are the best, especially as we had a lot of chances and you think ‘it’s not going to be our day today’, but then Sonny does it! Now we have to keep improving and be ready for Wednesday.”
Toby revealed that he won’t be able to celebrate his goal with new-born Jace until after the midweek Champions League clash with German side RB Leipzig: “My wife is still in Belgium so I still have to miss him but they’re coming back home on Wednesday after the game, so I’m looking forward to that!”
