Tottenham Hotspur FC

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Ramos: Final not to blame

02 Mar 2008 - 12:25:42

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Tottenham head coach Juande Ramos refused to blame last weekend's Carling Cup success for Saturday's surprise 4-1 defeat at struggling Birmingham City.

Spurs secured their first piece of silverware under the Spaniard with an extra-time success over Chelsea last Sunday, but Ramos refused to entertain claims that their final heroics had led to his players taking their eye off the ball in the league.

Jermaine Jenas struck a late consolation for the visitors, but by then the result at St Andrew's was a forgone conclusion.

"When a team achieves a big victory like we did last week, then they deserve to have a big party to celebrate," he said.

"They had sufficient time after that to have made a full recovery and I'm not using that as an excuse for today's result. Of course, I am not happy with the performance. No manager could be happy with losing 4-1.

"The game started off with us conceding an early goal which made it difficult for us. The principal problem was our players did not show sufficient attention to the intricacies of the game.

"We had to get a response to that goal but it did not work out for us. It was a very different match to the one against Chelsea and the players were showing less than full concentration.

"The team must not relax and I hope they can show what they are made of later this week in the UEFA Cup against PSV Eindhoven."