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Clint Dempsey's brace helped the Cottagers secure a comfortable 3-0 first-leg victory after Aaron Hughes broke the deadlock. Despite the scoreline, Dnipro proved stern opposition and were somewhat unfortunate not to grab a potentially all-important away goal. Dnipro manager Juande Ramos believed the result did not reflect the game but Jol disagreed with his counterpart. "You cannot win if you don't take your chances," he said. "We could have scored four or five and they had probably more shots on goals than we liked in the last 20 minutes. "They could have scored a goal as well but I think 3-0 is probably a realistic scoreline. "We saw them play a couple of games and even against Shakhtar they looked good, although [Shakhtar] still scored three goals. "They play good counter-attacking football. "They want to play football and we knew that so we knew there would always be space for us. "So we reversed that with our full-backs and they probably did not expect that so that was good. "Sometimes that happens and you can surprise another team and I think we did that." Much of the talk in the pre-match build-up was about Jol's relationship with Ramos, who controversially replaced the Dutchman as Tottenham boss four years ago. Both managers played down any talk of animosity heading into the match but Jol seemingly made a dig at the Spaniard in the post-match press conference. Before taking the White Hart Lane helm in late October 2007, Ramos claimed he turned down a "dizzying offer" to become Tottenham manager a couple of months earlier. When Jol was asked whether he would consider a move to Ukrainian football, he retorted using the same phrase: "I was there and I know [about Ukraine]. Kiev is a beautiful city. "So of course it is a good country to work and I've heard they pay well so that is always important. "If you get a dizzying offer you always have to think about it." Meanwhile, Ramos came under close scrutiny after the defeat from the assembled Ukrainian press. Dnipro have been in indifferent form of late and the former Sevilla coach has come under increasing pressure. Ramos denied he feared the sack and instead argued the scoreline was unjust after his side's performance. "It was not a deserved result," he said. "We played well but we didn't deserve that result. "The result was not a just result, it was too big for us. "We had the opportunities to score in the first half but then played to avoid a big defeat. "I don't think the scoreline reflected the performance. "Fulham have a strong defence and a strong team, the difference was in centimetres." Asked whether Dnipro could overcome the deficit in the second leg, he added: "It will be difficult after this result but football is very unpredictable. "We are trying but it doesn't mean we will. "We can only focus on the strengths we have and emphasise those."
