Spurs suffer spot of Euro bother

His two-year grip on the UEFA Cup is over and, while the victory over Chelsea at Wembley has made the season a success, their failure in Europe will come as a bitter blow to the Spaniard.

The 54-year-old was desperate to make history and secure the hat-trick, having won the competition the past two seasons with Sevilla.

What faces him now is a huge rebuilding job, for while Spurs can point to some misfortune in their exit, they didn't play well enough over the two legs to deserve success at this level. Frankly, and Ramos will know it, they were well below the standard set by Sevilla over the past three seasons. Mid-table in the Premier League and already in next season's UEFA Cup, there is a danger that Spurs' season will now peter out.

Changes will have to be made to the squad to ensure a stronger challenge on all fronts next season, but the pain of this defeat could see the current campaign end in anti-climax.

Ramos said: "Of course everybody is sad because we came so close and did everything we could. But unfortunately we didn't go through so everyone is sad.

"I hope the life isn't sucked out of the season because we have two months left in the Premier League, so I hope the players are able to get up and do their best for the rest of the games.

"The players are all professionals and they know we can win or we can lose. They need to get themselves together again and charge up for the next game against Manchester City."

As well as PSV played last week at White Hart Lane to secure a 1-0 advantage courtesy of a mistake by Gilberto, they were shown up in the Philips Stadium as being very one dimensional, and Spurs should have won.

In Dimitar Berbatov, Ramos has a player capable of providing the difference at this level, but too many others were found wanting.

It took Tottenham over 30 minutes to pose a threat on the home goal and that was from a set piece when captain Ledley King headed Jermaine Jenas's corner wide.

It could be argued they had done their job by keeping it tight to begin with but the quality of passing was disappointing for long periods.

They managed one promising attack two minutes before the break when a four-man move ended with Tom Huddlestone's shot being deflected wide.

The introduction of £16.5million striker Darren Bent from the bench did bring more of a threat, yet his poor finish with his left foot from 10 yards two minutes into the second half summed up his season.

Berbatov, anonymous for huge parts of the game, then delivered the kind of finish more worthy of the Champions League to take the tie into extra-time.

He ghosted onto Chimbonda's cross on the edge of the area to fire the ball first time into the bottom right hand corner.

The tide seemed to be with Tottenham, but in extra-time Bent sent a volley wide and Steed Malbranque's last-minute effort was brilliantly tipped over by keeper Gomes.

It still looked like Spurs would emerge victorious in the penalty shoot-out when Jenas had the chance to win the tie as Paul Robinson had saved from Danko Lazovic, only for Gomes to deny the England midfielder.

So into sudden death and Chimbonda eventually became the villain as he scuffed his effort woefully wide of the left post.

Skipper King, who left the pitch after an hour, said: "The lads are desperately disappointed. This was another cup Spurs could have won this season and it's a horrid way to go out, but we let our chance slip.

"We felt we had the players to win the competition, we had confidence in the team that we could get the result, but now we feel we didn't take our opportunity. The first leg has cost us, we didn't play well at home. The goal we gave them came from a mistake.

"We have learnt from this and we will come back next year a stronger and better team.

"For us to win something means that the season will still go down as a positive year for us. Now we have that taste of winning something, we believe we can go on and do more."

Spurs take on Manchester City on Sunday and assistant manager Gus Poyet insists the team must recover and bounce back in the Premier League.

He said: "The target for us now is that we keep improving and that means we have to win as many games as possible. We are going to start building for next season, beginning with Sunday."