Vincent Janssen's confidence still high despite struggle for goals at Tottenham

26 October 2016 01:08

Tottenham striker Vincent Janssen insists his confidence has not wavered despite failing to so far replicate the form he showed in Holland.

The 22-year-old was recruited from AZ over the summer having finished as the top scorer in the Eredivisie last term, and it was thought he would offer serious competition to Spurs' talisman Harry Kane.

Yet, even with Kane currently out injured, Janssen is still to find his feet in north London and a penalty in the EFL Cup defeat to Liverpool on Tuesday night was only his second Tottenham goal, with the other also coming from 12 yards earlier in the competition.

Janssen had been desperate to add to his tally at Anfield as soon as the second-half spot-kick was awarded, though he denied doubt had started to creep in as a result of his slow start in England.

"As a striker you always want to score and when I saw the referee gave a penalty I took the ball and put it in," he told Spurs TV.

"For me it doesn't matter where I take the penalty. It's just a penalty and you have to score it, I have enough confidence, it doesn't matter to me where it was or how long I haven't scored for. It was just a penalty, I wanted to score it and that's what I did."

English clubs have experienced mixed results in the past when signing the Dutch league's leading marksmen.

Chelsea's Mateja Kezman and Middlesbrough's Afonso Alves were flops and Manchester United's Memphis Depay is seemingly destined for that category, though Ruud van Nistelrooy, Luis Suarez and Wilfried Bony were all able to translate their success.

In Janssen's case, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino has warned it is too early to judge which bracket he belongs in.

"We are very happy with him," he added. "We need to understand he's 22 years old and coming from the Netherlands. It's a different league. We always need to give time.

"One thing is clear, he's a player that works a lot, is always involved and shows commitment in every game and every training session. That could only pay off to score goals in the future."

Janssen was one of 21 players to start on Tuesday that had not been involved from the off at the weekend as both Pochettino and Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp shuffled their packs.

Klopp handed a debut to teenage full-back Trent Alexander-Arnold, the 18th Liverpudlian to make a Reds bow since Steven Gerrard broke through.

None of the other 17 have managed to follow in the footsteps of Gerrard, Jamie Carragher or Robbie Fowler but there were encouraging signs from Alexander-Arnold, even if Pochettino felt he was fortunate to escape more severe punishment for a first-half challenge on Ben Davies.

"You need to come back into a game when you have difficult moments, like the yellow card from Trent," Klopp said.

"He is far away from being a really hard challenger. He stayed in the game and made a lot of challenges against (Georges-Kevin) Nkoudou on the wing and to do it smartly, that's a really good sign."

Source: PA