Kyle Walker-Peters made a costly mistake in Tottenham Hotspur’s draw at Camp Nou last week, but recovered brilliantly.
Kyle Walker-Peters has revealed to BT Sport that a brief pep talk from Harry Kane helped him recover mentally from his error in Tottenham Hotspur’s draw at Barcelona last week.
Tottenham drew 1-1 at Camp Nou but their night got off to a dreadful start when a wonderful solo goal from Ousmane Dembele put them behind on nine minutes.
Dembele’s opener stemmed from a mistake by Walker-Peters, who was playing in the absence of Kieran Trippier and Serge Aurier.
Despite the mistake, the 21-year-old went on to enjoy a very good game, as Lucas Moura’s 85th-minute equaliser sent Spurs through to the last 16 of the competition.
And the Lilywhites academy star feels as if he is well equipped to bounce back from similar errors in the future, should they occur.
“Danny Rose came straight over to me and said, ‘Keep going’. Harry Kane as well, he said a few things to me. As we went to take the kick-off he just said, ‘Keep going. There’s plenty of time’”, he told BT Sport.
“That gave me confidence and that’s why I went on to play quite well.
“It’s always going to happen once in your career. Now it’s happened I feel like I know how to deal with it. If it ever happens again – touch wood it doesn’t – I’ll know how to respond.”
To be fair, he showed an immense amount of bottle in how he responded to the setback.
Lesser players could have been ruined by costing his team an early goal away at Barcelona in all places, in such an important match, but it’s testament to the Tottenham defender’s mental strength that he recovered so well and so quickly.
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