Our press last night was the same press that a lower league team does v a top team in a cup game.
Give it your all for as long as possible and hope that something happens before your fitness gives out and the opposition get into their stride.
It might have looked good, but it was never going to be sustainable for the midfield 3 as they had simply too much ground to cover and we never controlled the ball long enough to rest.
The idea is to press and be compact whether you win the ball or not, what should have happened is that if the press failed or Bayern had possession. Alli at the minimum should have dropped in to make a 4 in midfield, but him Kane and Son stayed high (except that bizarre passage of play when Kane was playing DM with Sissoko and Ndomblele either side of him.
We were defending in three different units instead of one.
Disagree. Our press wasn't a lower league run around like mad with a random one or more players closing down the ball, it was instead well orchestrated with each player pressing specific opponents and taking up specific positions in unison with the player pressing. It was never going to be sustainable for the entire game I agree but I don't think we stopped doing it because our legs gave out (as typically when that happens you see the press being given up on player by player and ending up with a couple of players still pressing manically but completely ineffective.
I could be wrong but I thought it looked a conscious decision to move away from the press last night, probably because Poch and the team knew that it isn't sustainable for a full 45 minutes? Even after we stopped pressing, whilst Bayern dominated possession somewhat, they didn't actually look particularly dangerous, they just scored two goals from exceptional finishes. We had chances ourselves last night from similar positions from which we missed the target. Lewandowski's second goal for example was unbelievable. As the ball went to him with his back to goal, I sat there thinking 'there isn't much danger here', but the turn and shot were incredible. Bayern were not carving us open, we looked OK for the most part and often it was our own sloppiness in possession around our box that let them in.
The second half was of course a different story, especially towards the end, but we played about 4 different formations in the second half last night and had completely abandoned any shape at all by the last 15 minutes.
The Sky report of last night's game was similar to how I saw it while at the ground.....
"For the opening half an hour at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Mauricio Pochettino's side seemed to be back to their old selves. All the intensity that had been lost in recent months came flooding back as they overwhelmed Bayern Munich with a frenzied display of pressing.
Heung-Min Son's opening goal arrived after 12 minutes, but could have been three by that point And while Joshua Kimmich equalised soon afterwards, Spurs just kept coming, carving the visitors open repeatedly only to be thwarted by Manuel Neuer's alertness in the Bayern goal.
By the end though, those early stages of the game, when the South Stand was a wall of noise and Spurs seemed set to put their recent troubles behind them, were long forgotten. Boos rang out at the final whistle. They would have been far louder had the stadium not already been half empty."