Danny Rose denies Spurs are mentally fragile | OneFootball

Danny Rose has rubbished suggestions Tottenham have a mentality issue.

Spurs were beaten on penalties by Chelsea in Thursday’s Carabao Cup semi-final, prompting accusations that Mauricio Pochettino’s side are chokers.

But despite the fact the Lilywhites have now lost five of their last six semi-finals going back to 2010, Rose insists they aren’t bottlers.

“It’s not about our mentality, we’ve just missed two penalties,” the full-back told the Evening Standard.

“That criticism is unfair and we’re not going to entertain any talk like that. Obviously we know we haven’t won a trophy for a while, but we’re not driving into training thinking about it.

“We’re not training thinking about it and when we lost last night it’s not the first thing we thought of.

“We’re fully aware that we want to win something, but just because it’s not happened it doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen soon.

“Everyone’s proud of how we played. Even though we went 2-0 down, we didn’t change our approach.

“We kept trying to play. Obviously you need a bit of luck on penalties. It was just one of those things. It’s gone now and we’ll try to win on Sunday [in the FA Cup fourth round at Crystal Palace].”

Spurs have been hampered in recent weeks by injuries to Harry Kane and Dele Alli, both of whom are expected to be sidelined until March.

In fact, they have now suffered a whopping 37 separate injuries to first-team players this season, but Rose says they won’t be using it as an excuse and has backed Fernando Llorente to step up in Kane’s absence.

“We’ve just got to get on with it — there’s nothing else we can do,” added the England international.

“It’s an opportunity for people to play more regularly, an opportunity for youngsters to be given debuts, be given a run in the team.

“I’m over the moon for Fernando. I hope his goal has shut a few people up. It was a good header.

“He’s not featured as much as he would have liked, but he’s going to get a lot of game time now Harry’s out and it’s nice that he’s scored in the right net this week and we hope it continues.”