Tottenham coach Martin Jol hopes to use the disappointment of two cup exits this season to spur his side to glory in Europe.

Spurs warmed up for their trip to face Seville in the first leg of their Uefa Cup quarter-final on Thursday with a 1-0 success over Reading at White Hart Lane yesterday.

A first-half penalty by Robbie Keane was enough to secure all three points for Jol's side and push them into sixth place in the Premiership.

Tottenham have crashed out of both domestic cup competitions after squandering leads this season.

They were knocked out of the Carling Cup at the semi-final stage by north London rivals Arsenal despite being two goals in front in the first leg at one stage.

Against Chelsea in the quarter-final of the FA Cup, Jol's side threw away a 3-1 lead against the champions and lost the replay at home.

Jol said: "Learning from what has happened in our last two cup exits is crucial when looking at the Uefa Cup because again we have an enormous task ahead of us.

"Like Chelsea, people will look at Seville on paper and think they are better than us.

"They were voted Uefa's Team of the Year last season ahead of Barcelona and not only that, but beat the Champions League winners in the Super Cup last August.

"Their team has quality at its core. At the back Javi Navarro and Julien Escude are accomplished defenders, while in Daniel Alves they have one of the best full-backs in Europe.

"Up front, we know all about the quality Fredi Kanoute possesses so they certainly deserve our respect.

"Europe has been very enjoyable this season and a real bonus for us in terms of experience and confidence building.

"We're proud to be England's sole survivors in the competition and determined to pick up that banner and take it all the way to the final."

Tottenham's first clean sheet since October will have helped to boost Jol's confidence going into their European game.

They should have beaten Reading by a much bigger margin but were thwarted by the combined goalkeeping efforts of Marcus Hahnemann and his replacement Adam Federici.

Hahnemann pulled off a string of superb first-half saves before a hip injury forced him to be replaced by Federici at half-time.

He picked-up where Hahnemann had left off and kept the scoreline down with a host of similar stops.

Reading boss Steve Coppell said: "Marcus has done something to his hip. He doesn't know how he's done it and he felt it on Saturday in training.

"He wanted to go out in the second half and give it a go and I just thought well, what's the point, when I know I've got a good deputy in Federici - as he showed in the second half."

The game turned on the controversial penalty award which saw Greg Halford punished on his debut for handball.

Coppell added: "It is a shame for Greg that this game will be remembered for the penalty rather than other contributions, but I was pleased with his debut in such a theatre of football.

"I think Greg's reaction was just involuntary. When it hit his hand I think he just panicked and it hit him again.

"But you see things in games where the ball is smashed into players from a yard away, hits them on the hand and a penalty is given."

Jol countered: "I don't think it was only about the penalty as we created 15 chances.

"They had three chances over the whole 90 minutes and so I think our win was well deserved."