Ramos looks back on “excellent” season (SN)

Tottenham Hotspur's Juande Ramos believes that the club can be happy with their work last season. After a poor start in the Barclays Premier League under Martin Jol, Ramos took over in October and led the club to an 11th place finish.

He also masterminded a 2-1 victory over Chelsea in the Carling Cup final, Spurs' first trophy since 1999. “It's essential for a club like Spurs to be in Europe – that was an important goal,” said Ramos.

“It's been an excellent season really bearing in mind the difficulties we faced when we arrived. Firstly we've won a trophy, which is so important to Spurs and then to qualify for Europe was vital. The semi-final against Arsenal was very, very important because the team had gone for a long time without beating Arsenal, so to win a semi-final 5-1 caused tremendous happiness amongst the fans. To get to the Carling Cup final and then fight back from a losing position against Chelsea had tremendous value for us.”