Joe speaks from the heart after proud debut

Joe Hart described it as ‘an honour’ to make his Spurs debut in the UEFA Europa League against KF Shkendija - and then gave an honest assessment of our display in North Macedonia.

Always dominant, we were rocked by a bolt from the blue from Valjmir Nafiu on 55 minutes to level Erik Lamela’s early opener in this third qualifying round tie at the National Arena Todor Proeski in Skopje.

Jose Mourinho switched things up, Harry Kane, Gio Lo Celso and Lucas arrived off the bench and after two near misses, Heung-Min Son fired us back into the lead on 70 minutes before Harry planted home a header from Sonny’s cross 10 minutes later to secure our path into the play-off round.

We will now face Maccabi Haifa from Israel at home on Thursday (8pm) for a place in the group stage of the competition.

“It’s an honour, I’m really proud to wear the shirt, and in an important game,” said Joe, whose last European appearance was for Burnley in the Europa League back in August, 2018. “We were expected to win but it shows the manager has trust in me and that’s why I wanted to be at this club.”

It was pointed out to Joe that, for the second time, it had proved a tricky night, just like our second qualifying round victory over Lokomotiv Plovdiv in Bulgaria.

“That was all down to us tonight,” he continued. “We scored a goal and I think everyone just presumed it was going to be easy, but these teams are fighting for something really important, something that’s also incredibly important for us, so it’s a huge opportunity for them, and if we’re not on it, like we weren’t, on a difficult pitch... I thought we were poor, and we needed that extra bit of quality to get us out of a hole.”

Nevertheless, it was a case of ‘job done’...

“That’s important right now,” he added. “We’ve games coming thick and fast, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, and I know people say you get paid to play football, but it is tough, a big ask, and it’s important we got the win, that’s the main thing.”

Newcastle are next in the Premier League at home on Sunday (2pm). Impressive victors at West Ham on the opening weekend, Steve Bruce’s men were somewhat surprisingly beaten 3-0 at home by Brighton last week. They responded by hitting seven at Morecambe in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.

“It’s a really important match, they all are,” said Joe. “We had a meeting at the start of the season and there are obviously a lot of goals in the long term, but in the short term it’s to win every game. Now we focus our attention on Newcastle. That’s the most important game for us now.”