On the subs the difference was that Juve had little choice. They needed two goals in 30 mins so had no choice but to go for broke. We were on top for all but the 5 minutes in which they scored so why change?
The morning after the night before ... Juventus did us exactly as it was predicted they were likely to. The reason for that is purely in the shooting stats. Spurs had nearly 3 times as many shots as Juve, but their on target count was 1 in 3 vs 1 in 6. And then in terms in goals they got 2 from 3 vs Spurs 1 from 6. I have long complained about such stats in PL games, and this game proves that the clinical edge in attack has to be acquired for games like the CL. I don't blame the defence for the goals, as even with Toby + Jan etc the same thing may still have happened given the quality of Higuain and Dybala. The more competitive things get, the finer the margins of error. I hope that Pochettino will be learning things from the game, and next season it results in even better performance and game management.
I shouldn't rise to the bait but it annoys me how the hacks and pundits are painting the defeat as 'yet another missed opportunity to win a trophy'. I don't think there's a Spurs fan alive who genuinely thought we had a chance to win the thing, even after the group stage we had. Our mission statement for the CL this year was very simple: a drastic improvement on last year. We have ticked that box with a great big permanent marker. The real inquisition can and I believe should begin if we flop in the FA cup. With City out there is no excuse not to win it. If we don't, I will be the first to question our mentality under Pochettino. But for now, I'll allow the likes of Mcnumpty continue to join up dots that don't exist.
Just a word of advice not to accidentally tune in to Chief-WUM/twat Adrian Durham this afternoon. You can be sure he will be using terms like "bottled it". Best avoided in favour of much more balanced discussion in this thread!
His "join the dots" book has a problem. Whatever page he fills in, it always spells out "You are a moron who knows nothing about football" .
Even if all teams in the last 16 were exactly even we'd only have been 16-1 to win it. In practice after the draw we would have had to best four teams who are better than us to win it so 25-1 at best. Football IS all about winning trophies with 3 trophies on offer at home plus one in Europe it's still big odds against each season that we will win something. I do think the way Poch works is more effective against weaker teams. By which I mean that I think we are still not as strong in individual talent as the strongest teams and that really shows when we play one of them. But teamwork really pays off in matches where we are the better team. The only solution to that is more money to spend.
I hear that Tom Comatose has personally spaffed on every single match report in today's Standard. On the plus side, that means nobody will actually read it due to the pages being stuck together.
I tend to agree with this. Aside from Kane and maybe Toby when he is fully fit and Dembele when he is on form, we don't really have any players who can rub shoulders with the very best. Jan, Wanyama, Eriksen and Alli when he isn't on a strop are almost there but still lacking just that little bit of quality and/or experience. Then we have players like Son who will produce moments of magic on a fairly regular basis but will then follow that up with shockingly bad games. We are just that little bit short in terms of individual quality and yes, the only solution is to spend and hope that the young players we have continue to develop.
I was specifically talking about the subs, as I said, I'm still proud of the 3 who I felt had poor moments which were most significant. It was clear we were lacking energy in the second half and we had players like Rose and Moura on the bench, unused. Leaving Dembele in Midfield was a bad idea because it made it too easy for them to get the ball forward and waste valuable time. Lamela wants to bring the ball in and play through them which is a bad idea when they're holding a lead and Llorente isn't a great idea either, although by that point we were down to last rolls of the dice.
You have to bear in mind that that is over 2/3 of a seasons worth of "stuff" he has been storing up (I am surprised he made it this far) .
I thought Dele played really well. They were reduced to fouling him at every opportunity and contrary to some other posts, unlocking a defence, like Juve's needs something unexpected like one of his flicks to come off. I also don't think that our ability to take chances is particularly an issue apart from the obvious point that taking more would lead to more wins. In all competitions we are scoring about 2 goals a match on average and conceding less than one. If it wasn't for random events and different standard of opponents we would win every match 2-1 or 2-0. I don't know of any coaching methods that would make any difference to that.
The one where you coach referees to give you the benefit of the doubt every single time? That's got to be worth at least twelve points a season.
Because it was clear as day our players were tiring. Dele and Dier were knackered from 55 mins, Dier wasn't even having the best of games as it is. We had Lamela/ Moura and Wanyama on the bench who can replace those two without little change in quality, if at all. A 1-0 lead is the worst lead in football, especially one against world class opposition, it's never comfortable and it's inevitable the opposition will likely change something to try and alter the game, Poch should've been smarter rather than resting on his laurels. It took him 7 minutes until AFTER Juve scored to make his first change, by then it was too late, Juve are the kings of defending a lead, we managed to claw back goals in the first leg but a side like Juve won't make that mistake twice, especially as Chiellini was putting on a defensive masterclass. There's no shame whatsoever in losing to Juve but Poch unfortunatley got outclassed last night. 60 & 61 min subs. 64 and 67 min goals. 83 mins take off striker to really shut up shop. In that period, we'd made just one sub.
thought last night showed the lack of precision that teams can get away with in PL will be found out in CL ,more often than not ,when playing the elite of Euro. This isn't meant as a dig at you , especially as it applies equally to us, just something most of our clubs need to relearn along with game management .
As a spurs fan for the last 50 years I can honestly say I don't give a feck what all the hacks are saying about us as bottlers and poch will go harry will go and be followed by the rest of the squad. They are talking bollox why would poch want to leave us he is building a fantastic team who are getting better and better the squad is now stronger than ever and we have shown we can compete with the best clubs in Europe. This is the best overall squad I have seen at spurs in my lifetime and in my opinion poch is doing something special we have a fantastic new stadium to move into next season and I for one wouldn't want any other manager to take us forward over the next few years.we have played some fantastic football of late and long may that continue.I remember the years of gross santini etc and the drab football we were playing we have come a long way since then and I think a trophy is just around the corner onwards and upwards proud to be a yid
Unfortunately, it is a big blind spot for MP. If we make changes, we tend to make them late. I was at the Huddersfield game. Once we scored the second goal, we should have made changes to rest players that were going to play last night and give game time to those on the bench who need game time. We scored our second on 54 minutes. We changed Sonny for Erik Lamela on 70 minutes, Sissoko for Dembele on 77 and Dele Alli for Lucas on 83 minutes. I get keeping 1 sub until late on, just in case of injury but the other two were later than they needed to be. As a one off, I wouldn't mind but it's every game. We don't change early to alter things when they're going against us, nor to protect a good position, nor rest players who need it. I can't see that it serves any useful purpose always waiting until 65-70 minutes. We played within ourselves in that second half against Huddersfield. Putting players on that need the game time, to rest players with a big game coming up in 4 days, has to be right, doesn't it? I don't expect any change but I fundamentally disagree with it.
What makes you think that isn't already the case? We've only been soundly beaten once this season, away against City. We showed no fear against Real, or Dortmund, or United, even 2-0 down against Juve we got ourselves back into it. I love how Liverpool fans all of a sudden think they're the gurus of how to beat top sides because they beat City by a single goal, when they were poor and one of the best 'keepers in the league gifted them the winner. You still got battered by them and us earlier in the season. In a one off game, we've shown we absolutely can compete with the best and most expensive sides. The trouble is in season long competitions it often comes down to the little details and moments, how many of them can go your way. As incredible as City have been, they still owe the size of their lead over the rest of us to the little moments, nicking late goals when they're not at their best. Spending £100s of millions helps gain that advantage. Anyway, what us fans think doesn't really matter, and the players clearly approach every game with the belief they can win and that's the important thing.
Well some of the comments from Spurs fans make me think it. I'm not doubting you did well and had the better of Juve overall but the post match attitude seems to be that of "it was only a matter of time before we went out" I'm not saying we have all the answers it's been a long time since we won a trophy but what we wont do is give a **** if we pull out RM in the next round, we'll be very happy with that draw and mybe that is part history added to a lot of delusionbut imo you lot could do with a bit more delusion right now. I fully believe it filters down through the club if the fans believe.
Happy with our overall performance in the two legs, but disappointed with the results and gutted at the way we went out. A couple of sloppy minutes was all it took and it's even more annoying now that I've seen some of the "tackles" that they got away with. They looked bad in person and they look even worse on replays, with Son and Alli clearly targeted for dubious treatment. Juventus are exceptionally good at defending, but some of their thuggish tactics are deplorable. Pochettino's still got quite a bit of learning to do and substitutions are one of his weakest points, in my opinion. We've struggled to get any impact from the bench this season and it's cost us at times and last night was one of them. Son was taken out a number of times off the ball and he was struggling to get up and down the pitch. It was on the manager's far side, so maybe he didn't notice, but replacing him with Moura was a must, for me. Kane's header coming back off the inside of the post summed up our luck in the competition this season, I think. We had a ridiculously tough group which nobody expected us to get through, yet we won it comfortably. Who do we get in the next round? The finalist from last season that we hadn't faced. Typical. It's games like these that we need to learn from in order to strengthen. We've got a good team and a lot of them are very young, as is the manager. Keep the majority of it together and push on at the new stadium.
History is written by the winners of battles. Chiellini says what he says because Kane's header was a couple of millimetres the wrong way. If that goes in, with the change in momentum, younger legs, home advantage....Who knows? Cup games are about who has 'it' on the day. Yesterday was Juve's day. Partly through great finishing and good defending, partly because we went to sleep for 5 minutes, partly because we missed some decent opportunities. Had we got Toby back and they didn't get Higuain or Dybala fit? In the league, you get the winner that deserves it. Cups don't really do that. Some times it's your day and others it isn't. I'm still absolutely gutted, though.
