• Manager tells Spanish striker his luck will eventually change
• Spurs have to overcome a 1-0 deficit from the first leg

It is important to stress that Tim Sherwood was joking. The subject was Roberto Soldado and the Tottenham Hotspur manager was asked whether he had tried any old tricks in an attempt to rebuild the striker’s confidence – even getting him to bang balls into empty nets in training. “What about if he misses?” Sherwood shot back.

The way things are going for Soldado, the possibility cannot be discounted. The £26m signing from Valencia missed an open goal in last Thursday’s Europa League last-32 first-leg at Dnipro and on Sunday he fired over from an extremely presentable opportunity at Norwich City in the Premier League. Tottenham lost both matches 1-0.

Soldado’s first season in English football has been an ordeal, in which the errors have tended to stick more readily in the memory. The 28-year-old is actually Tottenham’s joint-top scorer with 10 goals yet there are caveats – five of them have come in the Europa League and four of his five in the league have been penalties.

It said much, though, about Sherwood’s breezy and ballsy man-management style that he was prepared to poke a little fun at Soldado who, he said, would start in the return tie against Dnipro at White Hart Lane on Thursday night.

Sherwood added that he had offered Soldado reassurance since the Norwich game. He told the striker the tide would turn and he simply needed any sort of goal, even one that deflected in off his backside to make it happen. He also pointed out that even the very best players endure barren spells; Liverpool’s Luis Suárez, for example, is on a run of one goal in eight starts. “No one is pointing any fingers as Liverpool are winning games,” Sherwood said.

Yet Sherwood was not afraid to spell out some home truths to Soldado and the rest of his players, who have stuttered over the past four weeks, apart from a 4-0 win at Newcastle United on 12 February. He said Soldado had “to have the character and be big enough to come through” the difficulties and added that “Robbie knows his time’s come.”

Soldado needs a good performance against Dnipro and in front of the Tottenham home support. They can be quick to show their frustration and Sherwood’s predecessor, André Villas-Boas, criticised them last October, after the win over Hull City. “It is like it drags the ball into our goal instead of the opponent’s goal,” Villas-Boas said.

Sherwood always gives the impression he welcomes the pressure and to him the home fans have every right to be demanding. It was up to the players, he continued, to show that they were cut out to play for a prominent club in the capital. Sherwood said he had no doubts about the character of Soldado, given his status as a seasoned Spain international, but he suggested that the jury remained out on other members of the squad.

“You need the personality when you are playing at White Hart Lane because it’s a big stage and it always has been,” Sherwood said. “I remember that from when I was a player here. It’s a very demanding crowd and rightly so, and you can either play for a big club or you can’t. Some of them have to still prove that they have got that character to be able to play for Tottenham.

“I always maintain that these mid-table or bottom-of-the-league sides … with respect to them, if you’re a professional footballer, you can play for them because you ain’t got that added spice of the pressure; the London media all over you. You’ve got it at Tottenham. Can you handle it or not? We’ll see.”

It is a big game against Dnipro, and not only because Sherwood is keen to improve on his record in knock-out matches as a manager, with three defeats in as many games. As he mentioned, Tottenham are in no position to pick and choose which trophies they go for, having won only three over the past 30 years and• he dismissed concerns about how a long slog in the Europa League can impact on domestic form. Tottenham have lost five of their nine league fixtures after Europa League ties this season.

“The stats suggest it is [a problem] but I would never use the Europa League as an excuse,” Sherwood said. “The travelling is a bit of a schlep but we’ve got a big enough squad to cope. We want to progress in this competition. We’ve not been blessed with a lot of trophies recently so it’s an opportunity to progress and still fight for that top four. It is sapping but we would rather have the games and worry about picking up the points in the league afterwards.”

Tottenham have put too much into the Europa League to bow out before it gets interesting and it should not be forgotten what a thrilling night the club had at the quarter-final stage of last season’s competition, albeit in a defeat by Basle on penalties.

Sherwood, though, has one eye on the restorative benefits that victory over Dnipro could bring with regard to the fight for Champions League qualification. Tottenham, who face Cardiff City at home on Sunday, trail fourth-placed Liverpool by six points. The pressure against Cardiff would intensify if they went out of the Europa League.

“If we were to turn this around, our next game against Cardiff becomes a lot easier,” Sherwood said. “If we don’t, it’s a really tough game, even against a team at the bottom of the league. When the pressure is on you, you’ve got to go and do it.

“If you can’t beat Norwich away, with respect, you don’t deserve to be in the Champions League. But you’re not going to win every game, you’re going to take knocks and it’s about the character of the players and especially me, as the leader of this group, to stand up and fight.”

• Tottenham Hotspur
• Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk
• Tim Sherwood
• Europa League

David Hytner

theguardian.com