Cape Town - Mauricio Pochettino was pleased with the personality of his Tottenham side as they saw off Watford on penalties in the League Cup on Wednesday.
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Spurs have struggled for results this season, including a loss to the Hornets in the Premier League at the beginning of the month.
They returned to winning ways by beating Brighton on Saturday, but needed spot-kicks to make it to the fourth round of the EFL Cup.
Isaac Success had opened the scoring at Stadium MK on 46 minutes before Christian Kabasele saw red for upending Dele Alli in the box.
Alli levelled from the spot, on 82 minutes, and Erik Lamela put Spurs ahead just four minutes later. Former Tottenham man Etienne Capoue found a late equaliser to take the match to penalties where he and Domingos Quina had their efforts saved by Paulo Gazzaniga to hand Pochettino's side a 4-2 win.
After the game, the Argentine boss said: "I’m happy, and happy because maybe it wasn’t a great performance but the team fought hard and I think the personality we showed at the end taking the penalties and winning the game is a fantastic signal for us."There are periods in football where all is against you and in the last few games, we’ve suffered a lot of negative things."The most important thing is to keep working, keep pushing, keep being strong. Maybe we deserved to win the game 2-1 after the second half but I think it was good, the character, and it’s a positive result."We need to be strong and all together. From the beginning of the season we have played eight official games, we are going to play again on Saturday, seven away from home and two at Wembley."I think we need to praise the players and praise the fans - we’re making a fantastic effort."Teams that have qualified for this round are as follows:
Arsenal
Bournemouth
Chelsea
Crystal Palace
Fulham
Leicester City
Manchester City
Tottenham Hotspur
West Ham United
Derby County
Middlesbrough
Norwich City
Nottingham Forest
Blackpool
Burton Albion
Everton play Southampton in their third round tie on October 2 2018.