Ryan Mason was bursting with pride after securing victory against Southampton in his first match as our Interim Head Coach on Wednesday evening.
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We did it the hard way as well. Trailing to Danny Ings’ header on the half-hour, Gareth Bale’s inch-perfect curler levelled it up on the hour and having seen a goal disallowed by VAR, Heung-Min Son kept cool from the penalty spot to slot home the winner in the 90th minute after Moussa Djenepo’s foul on Sergio Reguilon was seen to be inside the box by VAR.
It was quite a turn around at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and quite a 48 hours for Ryan, the Academy graduate who made his debut for us aged 17 in 2008, played 70 times for us until departing for Hull in 2016, and was then forced to retire aged 26 after a serious head injury in January, 2017.
“It’s a great feeling, I’m so happy,” said Ryan. “I can’t really tell you my emotions right now. I thought the performance in the second half was outstanding, the effort, the guys gave absolutely everything.
“We were fully committed, brave, aggressive as well. I thought there were times in the first half where we could have been better in individual duals, in 50-50s, but the guys gave everything. You could see that, you could feel that.
“The momentum was with us in the second half. We gained full control of the game. We created chances, the VAR decision to disallow the goal was disappointing but the guys kept going, kept believing and I felt the right team won.”
Momentum is the key word – not just in this game, but momentum we can now take into Sunday’s Carabao Cup Final against Manchester City at Wembley (4.30pm).
Ryan added: “When you play in a team sport, you want to win. You need to feel that energy, that positivity. Listen, we won tonight, but more importantly the attitude and the way we won, the way the game went, I think it says a lot about the character of the guys in the changing room, I’m very proud of them.”
