lucky, or unlucky.
Spurs second Champions League trip to Wembley was amazingly even worse than the first and at this rate it’ll be Europa League come next year, if they’re lucky or unlucky.
At the end of the first half it was already the worst performance by Spurs this season and as this season has been, bar one game, pretty woeful that shows how bad this was.
Right from the very off, it was awful and it hardly let up all night.
The first few minutes Spurs were playing like it was the dying minutes and they had a one goal lead. You know that back to the wall panic just before they give up the equaliser.
Pochettino went with his tried and trusted no player up front who can hold onto the ball for more than a second so it’s straight back at ’em formation. While the passing was beyond atrocious. In about the first half hour Eriksen completed two passes, of the ten he attempted.
Others weren’t much better.
Dembele was completely out of sorts and departed on the half hour, replaced by Janssen. A tactical shift from Pochettino, seeing he got it wrong and making the necessary change, be serious, I said half an hour not an hour.
No, Dembele is injured, probably enough to miss the weekend fixture against the Woolwich scum, which is great. So no, it was forced on him and a reaction to the rubbish that he was watching.
That it took over an hour for Leverkusen to score was the only surprise on the night. That it came from a defensive omnishambles certainly was no shock. For the previous 65 minutes those in white had tried their best to gift a goal with some boneheaded, ineptness in play.
Oh, hello Kyle Walker. He’s so thick he could be the shadow education secretary.
I suppose in the grand scheme of things Pochettino doesn’t make the substitutions because he looks at the bench and well, can’t exactly see anything there to liven things up. Though it was screaming out for N’koudou, someone to stay wide and inject a bit of pace. Only that is if of course he does stay wide and inject the pace, not if they have told him to cut inside and dither about.
He did get down the wing one time, did the right thing of getting a cross in but it was over the heads of everyone in the box.
He came on for Son, while Winks replaced Eriksen. That was a like for like replacement, one anonymous player replacing another one. Honestly what is wrong with Eriksen? Why does he just disappear so easily from games?
But even with as bad as Eriksen was why on earth did he come off while Sissoko stayed on? Honestly it looks like they did pay £30 million for him, not the 6 that’s been bandied about. There’s no other reason for him to be on the park other than they’ve paid a lot and want to get something out of it.
Old adage, never buy a player off the back performances in a summer international tournament alone.
Highlight of the night for Spurs, Dier hitting the bar with a free-kick, yup, that’s yer lot. Though with his close effort and Janssen’s at the weekend, how close has Eriksen been lately with his?
So down to third in the group, got to beat Monaco away at the car park, oh another stadium they can use an excuse or it’s possibly the Europa and Thursday night / Sunday games. Do they want that, or will they try and finish fourth?
Currently managers seem to have a three year lifespan at clubs these days. Around that three year period the players stop doing what they did previously and things drop. Pochettino is in that third year. Are the players doing what they are told, if so that’s not good, or are they ignoring what they are told, if so that’s not good…