Jermain Defoe: Tottenham Hotspur won’t be treating Norwich City lightly

Wednesday, October 31, 2012
3:20 PM

Tottenham’s international stars are braced for a tough excursion to Norfolk with the Canaries standing between Spurs and the last eight of the Capital One Cup.

Jermain Defoe and Gareth Bale have both warned the rest of Andre Villas-Boas’ squad not to take Norwich lightly at Carrow Road. Defoe believes City’s recent Premier League win over their bitter north London rivals deserves plenty of respect from the visitors.

“It’s another hard game, they had a fantastic result against Arsenal,” he said. “I’m sure Chrissie was delighted with that performance and to beat Arsenal, not many teams do that. I can imagine they are buzzing after a win like that. It’s another away game for us, another tough game and another must-win game. We’re looking forward to it.”

Bale was the difference when Tottenham eased past Norwich last season in the Premier League with a two-goal salvo. The Welshman took his tally to six for the current campaign with a header to help sink his old club Southampton at the weekend for Tottenham’s fifth league win in their last six outings.

“They’re a team that works hard for 90 minutes and they’re going to give us a hard time, so we’ll have to be fully prepared,” he said. “We’ll have to sit down and have a look what their weaknesses are. Hopefully we can exploit them and come away with a good result. I wanted to get back onto the scoresheet after being out for a couple of games. The most important thing was to get the three points to lift ourselves back into the top four.”