Gollini grateful to fans amid penalty drama at Molineux
Thu 23 September 2021, 17:43|
Tottenham Hotspur
Pierluigi Gollini thanked our travelling supporters for their vociferous backing as we made it through Wednesday evening’s Carabao Cup shootout at Wolves.
Level at 2-2 after 90 minutes of the third round clash, goalkeeper Pierluigi played an integral role as the tie went to spot-kicks.
Having almost saved Hwang Hee-Chan’s opener for the hosts, he saw Ruben Neves clip Wolves’ third penalty over the bar at 2-2 before crucially stopping Leander Dendoncker’s fourth effort to give Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg a shot at winning it for us.
Unfortunately Pierre was denied by John Ruddy, but when Conor Coady smacked Wolves’ fifth penalty against the crossbar, we were through.
Our fans were noticeably loud throughout the shootout, willing our players on – and that’s something that wasn’t lost on our Italian shot-stopper.
“It's always amazing when you're away and you see all your fans there – there were so many,” he said. “I remember the first time we played here in the Premier League, there were loads of them and this time it was a cup game but still it was very full of Spurs fans. It's always beautiful to see them coming with us away and we can only thank them for that.
“I was angry with myself for not saving the first penalty – I said to myself ‘I've got to say another one’ because if we lose because I didn't save that one, I'm going to regret it so much. I knew it was going there, I felt it and I was right but I couldn't save it. I thought I had to save at least another one but my team-mates, they shot perfectly, very good and we are very happy to go to the next round.
“Pierre made a mistake on his penalty but that's okay. The other ones were very good penalties, all of them, Harry (Kane), Reggy (Sergio Reguilon) and Bryan (Gil), they shot perfect penalties and it was very good. Yesterday we tried and the guys were on fire yesterday and they were today in the game as well.”
