Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has stated that Tottenham struggled to remain compact in parts of the game as Middlesbrough secured another FA Cup giant killing on Tuesday evening.
Victorious on penalties in the previous round against Manchester United, the Championship side claimed another famous scalp after securing a 1-0 win courtesy of Josh Coburn's extra-time winner.
Chris Wilder's men may have lost two of their previous three league games going into the cup tie but they fully deserved to progress through to the quarter-finals after causing some big issues for Tottenham.
The Lilywhites, on the other hand, had a handful of chances across the 120 minutes but goalkeeper Joe Lumley was kept very quiet during the encounter and only really had an Eric Dier free-kick that troubled him.
Conceding in the 107th minute and not doing enough after that to salvage a draw and avoid an embarrassing exit, Hojbjerg reflected on where Spurs went wrong in their performance at the Riverside Stadium when speaking to Spurs TV after the slender defeat.
"Middlesbrough were creating a momentum in parts of the game. I think some parts of the game we stood against them OK, but other parts of the game we were struggling to keep the compactness," he explained.
"We had enough chances to execute and enough chances to win the game. When you don't execute you give Middlesbrough even bigger belief and give the crowd the chance to become the 12th man.
"We have to execute the chances we had and close the game. Very disappointing."
Making it clear that Spurs missed a glorious chance to progress to the final eight of the competition, Antonio Conte did also say in his post-match press conference that their opponents were full value for their triumph.
"I feel that we lost a good chance to go through to the next round and to play the quarter-final in an important competition like the FA Cup. I think this. There is for sure disappointment for the final result," said the Italian.
"I think this type of game, especially when you play away and against a team who have played in the Premiership, you have to know the difficulty and for this reason you have to try to kill in a sporting way the opponent quickly.
"I think we have had the chances to score but we didn't take it and then you give confidence to your opponent, then you risk.
"At the end Middlesbrough won the game and they deserve to go to the next round. Great compliment to them, the manager and the players because I think they played very well."
