Smalling pleased with battling performance

Justin Kluivert's away goal at the Ghelamco Arena effectively decided the tie, as the Giallorossi drew 1-1 on the night to progress 2-1 on aggregate.

Here's what Smalling had to say after the game...

The competition is getting tougher and tonight’s game shows that. We got through though, and that’s what matters…

“Yeah I think tonight was about making sure we are in the hat tomorrow, and once we got that away goal we knew they would have to score three. The focus was on making sure we didn’t concede any more. I think in the second half we perhaps dropped a little bit too deep, but overall we got the away goal and we saw the game out.”

Gent aren’t a big team, but they showed their quality over the tie.

“Yeah, they were a tough team. We knew before we came here that they had not lost at home all season, so you could tell they had a lot of confidence. We had to be strong; you could see the lads running hard, fighting hard, putting in blocks and that’s what we are as a team. We worked hard together and you saw that on the pitch as we wanted to make sure we were in the hat for tomorrow’s draw.”

Tomorrow we find out who is up next…

“Tomorrow we will recover and reflect on this game. We will definitely be watching the draw though. There are some big teams at this stage and there will be some big draws, so we are definitely excited to see who we get.”

Any preference on who we get?

“No, no preference. Our plan is to get to the final, so bring on anyone.”