New look Spurs begin hunt

Sep 19, 2013 |

Paris

A revamped Tottenham Hotspur will headline the Premier League’s quest for Europa League success when the group stage begins on Thursday.
Spurs, winners of the competition in 1972 and 1984, will also be joined by Welsh outfit Swansea City and English second-tier side and European debutants Wigan Athletic.
Tottenham again finished agonisingly out of the Champions League places last season, consigning them to the Europa League for the third year running.
Andre Villas-Boas’s men were knocked out at the quarterfinal stage on penalties by Switzerland’s Basel a year ago, but a favourable draw — Tromso, Sheriff Tiraspol and Anzhi Makachkala accompany Spurs in Group K — has the north Londoners targeting another deep run.
Despite the departure of talisman Gareth Bale, Spurs have reinforced their squad with seven new signings.
“Obviously the Europa League is a massive competition and we’ve got a big squad this season, so we’re looking to really challenge on all fronts,” said midfielder Andros Townsend, who faces increased competition following the arrivals of Christian Eriksen, Paulinho and Erik Lamela.
“We’ve got the squad to challenge on all fronts, but first and foremost we’ve got to focus on getting out of our group,” added Townsend ahead of the visit of Norway’s Tromso.
Swansea travel to Valencia in their opening Group A match, marking a return to Spain for manager Michael Laudrup, who played for both Barcelona and Real Madrid and guided Getafe to the quarter-finals in 2008.
Laudrup’s Premier League side, who qualified by virtue of winning the English League Cup, features a sizeable Spanish contingency, although ex-Valencia winger Pablo Hernandez will miss out against his former club due to a hamstring injury.
“It will be another very difficult game for us,” said Laudrup, whose team were also drawn with Russian club Kuban Krasnodar and Swiss side St Gallen.
Defender Ashley Williams said: “It is nights and games like this that you look forward to and as a squad we will certainly give this our very best shot.” Also, FA Cup winners Wigan face Belgian outfit Zulte Waregem.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/257673" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-4c0aa68c6505e024068545de97a37549" value="form-4c0aa68c6505e024068545de97a37549" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="86523518" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>