City reaction - Ben, Hugo on the ‘wake-up call’ at the Etihad and the mindset for the rest of the season | OneFootball

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·7 February 2023

City reaction - Ben, Hugo on the ‘wake-up call’ at the Etihad and the mindset for the rest of the season

Article image:City reaction - Ben, Hugo on the ‘wake-up call’ at the Etihad and the mindset for the rest of the season

As we celebrated goals on Sunday - well, one in particular - it wasn’t lost that a third-successive clean sheet secured another memorable victory against City.

The combination of Harry Kane’s record-breaking strike and an outstanding defensive display saw us home for five wins out of five against the reigning champions at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.


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Both skipper Hugo and centre-back Ben recognise those three clean sheets on the trot at Fulham, Preston and now City represent a return to the defensive form that did so much to get us over the line in terms of making the top four and qualifying for the UEFA Champions League last season, when we won 10 of our last 14 matches, keeping clean sheets in eight of them.

Here’s what they had to say…

Hugo Lloris

“We had great satisfaction to work together, to feel the strength of the team. Maybe we lost that a bit for a while, but I believe the defeat at City was a wake-up call. We don’t want to miss opportunities. There are four months to go. You can lose points in December, January but, from now, February until the end of the season, you need to switch on the engine and be consistent. If you want to be consistent as a team, you need to be solid. That was our strength last season, and when you look at the last few games, Fulham, not easy, City, even the FA Cup at Preston, we’re going in the right direction. We must push now. We did it last season, we need to stay confident. I hope this will be a turning point.”

Ben Davies

“We went through a bit of a patch where it was difficult, and we were having to score goals to win games, and that’s not where we want to be. We’re very happy as a unit to keep these clean sheets, they give us a good platform, and then Harry did the job for us at the other end. We had a bit of a rude awakening after our last eight games or so where we were on a bad run, conceding a lot of goals and we needed to get better. It was a bit of a kick up the backside. We’re now back in a good rhythm and that performance shows the togetherness we have, for instance, Emerson made some outstanding headers at the back post, he was excellent. That’s the spirit and the mindset we need to have. We still know there are things we can improve on, even City, we could have cut down even more of their chances but, overall, we’re really happy. It was a good performance, we managed the game well, when we had to sit in we were smart and when we had to put pressure on the ball and win it back, we did that as well. I thought we were on the front foot and deserved the win.”

Watch - Ben's post-match on SPURSPLAY

In focus - Emerson v City

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