Mauricio Pochettino has admitted that some people close to Tottenham Hotspur questioned his team selection for the Champions League tie away to Real Madrid – saying “what the F”.
I certainly had a WTF moment when I saw the team line up for Real Madrid away. I could see the reasoning behind Llorente with his experience of such games and Kane is first on the team sheet - but I never thought we'd weather the storm with that line up. I love the flexibility we now have and the way the team adapts to tactics and configurations. We're a million miles away from where we were in Poch's first season.
Like any team selection though you look clever when it works and an idiot when it doesn't.
I must admit playing 1 up front at home against teams you know are going to park the bus, and they do, but then play 2 up front away from home against one of the best teams in Europe doesn't make much sense to me but it worked.
Thats why he's managing Spurs and I'm off to coach kids at Saturday Football Club.
Before the game, I thought this was a pretty obvious choice and was really surprised at the opposition it stirred up. Lorente in for Dele didn't seem too radical, particularly as nowadays Dele plays pretty much as a second striker much of the time. And I trusted Poch to be able to coach the attacking pair suitably so they didn't get isolated. Keeping Sissoko rather than putting Son in seemed suitably cautious. Moving Verts to left back stringing five across the back and giving Dier or another centre back scope to move ahead as the opportunity arose seemed logical. A much lower share of the ball than usual seemed reasonable to expect, but we still had wing options that meant we were a danger. Seemed fine to me.
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