Tottenham Hotspur boss Tim Sherwood has revealed that he has spoken to Roberto Soldado about the striker's lack of goals, but believes that his "time has come".

Soldado, a £26m signing from Valencia last summer, has struggled in his debut season in English football, and missed an open goal in the Europa League last-32 first-leg defeat to Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk last week.

However, Sherwood feels that the Spaniard, who will play in the second leg on Thursday, has the ability to come through his barren spell.

"Robbie knows his time has come. Hopefully that will be tomorrow. He will be playing and hopefully we can see him hitting the back of the net," Sherwood is quoted as saying by The Express

"I sat down with him this week, had a chat with him and said, 'it will happen, it's a matter of time'.

"We know he's a top player. Now's the time for one to ricochet off his backside and go in the back of the net and he'll be off on a run like Emmanuel Adebayor. It would be handy to have the two of them scoring."

Soldado is yet to score in 2014.