Tottenham may lose prized players if they miss Champions League spot

Posted Tuesday, April 12, 2011 by theguardian.com

• Club must finish in top four, says Heurelho Gomes
• Spurs keeper says they can upset odds and beat Real Madrid

Tottenham's Heurelho Gomes says if Spurs play like they did against Stoke and do not concede they can upset Real Madrid.

Heurelho Gomes says Tottenham Hotspur could face a battle to keep their prized assets if the club do not qualify for the Champions League again next season.

Tottenham are fighting to finish in the Premier League's top four and they have a daunting run-in, which features matches against Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool.

The goalkeeper is confident his team can stay the course and qualify for Europe's elite tournament but he predicted that the manager Harry Redknapp would find it more difficult in the summer transfer market if he did not have the attraction of Champions League football.

Redknapp is determined to add "one or two that will make the difference" when the window opens but his biggest task is arguably to retain his key players, most notably Gareth Bale and Luka Modric, who have no shortage of high-profile suitors.

"When you play Champions League, every player wants to sign for Spurs," Gomes said. "And maybe without Champions League, it's a little bit difficult to sign very good players, and also to keep the best players. Of course, it's important to keep the likes of Gareth Bale but I think the whole team is very important for us.

"We've loved playing in the Champions League, it's a massive competition. The club thinks big and when a club thinks big, we have to be there and we have to play Champions League. To finish in the top four, we need to beat Arsenal, Chelsea and City but we've beaten them before, we did it at the end of last season and we can do it again."

The 4-0 defeat at Real in the quarter-final first leg last Tuesday was deflating and the priority on Wednesday in the White Hart Lane return is to restore pride and ensure that a thrilling campaign can at least end on a high. Gomes continues to believe that an outlandish comeback is not beyond the bounds of possibility, largely because he has experience of something similar.

The Brazilian was a PSV Eindhoven player in 2006-07 and on the final day of the Dutch league season, his team was level on points at the top of the table with AZ Alkmaar and Ajax. The goal differences made PSV the outsiders. Alkmaar were +53, Ajax +47 and PSV +46.

In reality, Gomes's team needed Alkmaar to fluff their lines at Excelsior Rotterdam and for PSV's margin of victory over Vitesse Arnhem to be two goals better than Ajax's against Willem II. Unexpectedly, Alkmaar did lose in Rotterdam and although Ajax won 2-0, PSV triumphed 5-1 to take the title.

"No one expected us to do it," Gomes said. "They said the competition was over for us. But miracles can happen. The games started at the same time and I think our game finished two minutes earlier than the Ajax game and we were just waiting for the final whistle."

Another five-goal home victory would do nicely for Gomes.

"It's going to be a massive game with Madrid but I spoke to a couple of the boys and I said, 'If you score like we did against Stoke City on Saturday [in the 3-2 win] and not concede any goals, we can get through'," Gomes said. "I think it's more difficult to score against an English team in England than against a European team. It's not easy to score against Stoke. They are big lads and they block everything.

"We have shown a lot of character before to come back from difficult situations and I think we can show it again. We think first about winning the game and then maybe, maybe ... why not? It's going to be difficult but we still feel we can do it."