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OMT Tottenham Hotspur v Ajax - the second leg

Facebook has just reminded me that, 7 years ago last weekend, I was at the Camp Nou watching Pep's last home game as Barcelona manager. It was a 4-0 win over Espanyol with Messi getting all four. That included two soft penalties and many equally soft fouls.

My mates and I wanted to see Pep's great tiki-taka Barcelona side before he left and things changed. We were in awe. The stadium, the history, one of Europe's greatest ever club sides. Living a dream that was unattainable for my beloved Tottenham.

Seven years on and Barcelona aren't some side to be feared. In fact, I was hoping they'd win last night (or at least not get beaten 4-0!) as I felt that they'd be an easier opponent in the CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL.

I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but the opposition manager on that heady evening was a certain Mauricio Pochettino. No matter what happens tonight, he has led us on one hell of a journey, and one hell of a season. Our bedraggled, knackered, injured squad go into the final rounds of the season absolutely dead on their feet. But can they come up with a couple of last desperate knockout blows?

Believe. That's what I'm saying. Remember this quote. Whether it really came from Bill Nich or Danny Blanchflower doesn't matter, but it's not very often in my time as a supporter that it's actually rung true:
"It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory."

Only under Pochettino have we actually been able to set our sights high enough that failure will have in it an echo of glory.

Glory, Glory, Tottenham Hotspur. COYS.
 
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P.D. said:
So what are the yellow card rules, they are wiped at SF stage but if you get booked in both legs do you miss the final or do you need a red for that? If 2 yellows then their LB definitely got booked, should try and exploit that.
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Red card only way to miss the final.

Or..retrospective ban (these days that’s presumably for tweeting something UEFA don’t like )
 
This will be our biggest match of the season. Too bad we lost the first leg 1-0 at home. Now we have to work hard to overcome the deficit in the 2nd leg away at Ajax. It is going to be difficult but not impossible. After all, Liverpool overcame the 3-0 first leg defeat to beat Barcelona 4-3 on aggregate. It shows you can overcome any team and deficit if you work hard. But we need all the players to lift their game to help us overcome Ajax.

Wish we can have all our players fit to play in this match, especially Kane and Lamela. We need all our attacking players to be at their best. We need big performance from Eriksen, Son, Moura and Alli. They can hurt Ajax if they play to their best. Llorente can come on later in the match as needed. Not sure if Kane will be fit to be involved in this match. But it will lift the team if Kane is even on the bench. It will help us greatly if Lamela is fit to start this match or come on later in the match. Lamela's tenacity, work rate and creativity will help us against Ajax.

This match will be won or lost in midfield. We have to win the midfield battle to have any chance of winning this match. Want Wanyama and Sissoko to start this match in midfield. Wanyama has not been at his best lately but his work rate will help us stop Ajax. Sissoko improved our midfield greatly when he came on against Ajax in the first leg. Hope Sissoko will help us beat Ajax in this match.

Our defence is going to be key to us winning this match. We conceded the soft goal against Ajax in the first leg. We cannot afford to concede any goal in this match as that will make it hard for us. Hope Vertonghen will be fully fit to start with Alderweireld in defence. We also need match-winning performance from Lloris. We need to be fully alert all the time and avoid making any silly mistakes near our goal. It will help us greatly if we can stop Ajax scoring in this match.

It is going to be a tense match. We need to be ruthless and clinical in front of goal to beat Ajax. We cannot afford to waste our goal scoring chances. At the same time, we also need to be patient and avoid doing anything stupid. Want us to win in normal time since we don't have good record in penalties. But hope we will practise penalties and choose our penalty takers just in case. Let's hope we will turn up with the right team and mentality to beat Ajax and progress to our first ever CL final.
 
Right here's the plan.....

Just had a quick wizz around the Ajax club shop (waste of time), on the wall was the faces of their heroes...they undoubtedly have talent BUT f.ck me they look like an U17 team.

We need to inflict the men against boys advantage.

At the start of the first leg they looked every bit the talented side but it was massively encouraging how we started to dictate to them and put them in their shell.

I think they only have one way of playing, if you disrupt that, it throws them and they don't have the individuals or experience to drag the back together or find another way.

They play sh.it teams in the league every week...they are used to things going their way. As Liverpool showed last night (to a much more experienced team) the power of the prem is a shock to the continental teams. You might think 'but the prem level is not great?'..It is the toughest league, we play 10 games against the other top 6 and also have to contend with upstarts like Wolves Leicester etc who will roll over for no-one.

It exhausts you but makes you battled hardened with the nous to get the job done.

Let's take them to dark places. Test their effing bottle.
 
Abbeyspur said:
Talksport saying that Kane might will be on the bench tonight. if it was anyone else other than Talksport I might believe them!
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He wouldn't have been allowed to travel with the squad if he wasn't in contention. I'm pretty sure Poch wouldn't have allowed distractions like that for sentimental reasons.
 
Any team news yet ?

Really wish Kane and Lamela will be involved in this match, especially Lamela. Want us to start slowly but finished strongly in this match. We need all our attacking players to take their chances in front of goal. They should shoot or pass instead of dribbling too much. Hope they will also be ready for penalties if needed. Good performance is really not needed in this match as long as we score and win. Let's hope we will do enough to overcome Ajax to reach our first ever CL final.
 
Gutter Boy said:
He wouldn't have been allowed to travel with the squad if he wasn't in contention. I'm pretty sure Poch wouldn't have allowed distractions like that for sentimental reasons.
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Of course he would be allowed if his rehabilitation is on course. Kane wants to support the team. Sanchez has travelled as well - are we expecting to see him in the bench too?
Whilst it would be great if Kane is fit to play a part, I can’t see it happening personally.
And there’s no point having a player on the bench just for show.
 
Glenda's Legs said:
Of course he would be allowed if his rehabilitation is on course. Kane wants to support the team. Sanchez has travelled as well - are we expecting to see him in the bench too?
Whilst it would be great if Kane is fit to play a part, I can’t see it happening personally.
And there’s no point having a player on the bench just for show.
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The whole squad don't come for a jolly on away trips. It's usually the tight 17 (plus a spare KWP type in case of a late injury). Kane didn't even go to City away. If other players are there, they will be with the directors and co., not the playing squad. I think Sanchez will be involved too - yes
 
Hootnow said:
Sounds ridiculously obvious and easier said than done of course but we need:

-No silly mistakes
-Eriksen, Dele and Son to have the games of their lives
-Preferably an early goal to put some fear into the players and silence the crowd.

Difficult to know what to do with Llorente tbh. I wasn't a big fan of his performance initially in the 1st leg and then rethought it and realised actually we only really got a foothold in the game once we stopped trying to outplay them and injected some power in the midfield in Sissoko and started sending it up long to Llorente.

They really struggled to deal with him imo and I just wonder if its better to have him on at the beginning with Son, Dele and Eriksen buzzing around him or save him on the bench for an option if we're not doing enough to hurt them.

Difficult choice really.
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no mistakes for gods sake....just confidence for a change...………… . . . Come on you Spurs...……..
 
Glenda's Legs said:
Of course he would be allowed if his rehabilitation is on course. Kane wants to support the team. Sanchez has travelled as well - are we expecting to see him in the bench too?
Whilst it would be great if Kane is fit to play a part, I can’t see it happening personally.
And there’s no point having a player on the bench just for show.
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He's 4/1 (second favourite) to be first goalscorer: https://www.oddschecker.com/football/champions-league/ajax-v-tottenham/first-goalscorer
 
Gutter Boy said:
The whole squad don't come for a jolly on away trips. It's usually the tight 17 (plus a spare KWP type in case of a late injury). Kane didn't even go to City away. If other players are there, they will be with the directors and co., not the playing squad. I think Sanchez will be involved too - yes
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I don’t know who he’s there with. Not as part of the 19 or whatever man squad I assume.
He was allowed to go to the Super Bowl during his last injury so a hop across to Amsterdam is hardly problematic for our most important game in decades.
As for being able to get odds on him scoring, you can get odds on Aurier scoring as well and he hasn’t even travelled as far as I’m aware.

Again I’d love to see him play a part but I just don’t see it. Fingers crossed though.
 
Glenda's Legs said:
I don’t know who he’s there with. Not as part of the 19 or whatever man squad I assume.
He was allowed to go to the Super Bowl during his last injury so a hop across to Amsterdam is hardly problematic for our most important game in decades.
As for being able to get odds on him scoring, you can get odds on Aurier scoring as well and he hasn’t even travelled as far as I’m aware.

Again I’d love to see him play a part but I just don’t see it. Fingers crossed though.
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It's psychological, not about logistics.

If he's a hanger-on with the squad, it's an instant reminder to everyone that we aren't at our best.

Injuries also spook non-injured players, which is why they do their rehab in isolation - the feeling of not being indestructible can't be allowed to permeate.
 
Gutter Boy said:
It's psychological, not about logistics.

If he's a hanger-on with the squad, it's an instant reminder to everyone that we aren't at our best.

Injuries also spook non-injured players, which is why they do their rehab in isolation - the feeling of not being indestructible can't be allowed to permeate.
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Lol. If our players are spooked by Kane being around then we are truly f@cked and might as well give up now.
 
Modric THFC said:
You thought Kane was gonna be playing in the first leg ffs.
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Maybe he could have done (he should have with normal recovery from that injury). But if he's like a bee's sting for this last fortnight, perhaps we had to save him for the most important match.
 
Glenda's Legs said:
Lol. If our players are spooked by Kane being around then we are truly f@cked and might as well give up now.
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Seriously - watch how players go no where near a teammate when they get a bad injury - both on the pitch when it happens and longer term. You can't even text your injured pals because you can't let football become associated with injury. It's one reason why long term injured players get such mental health issues. It's not being mean, it's being resilient to protect your absolute commitment to the next tackle.
 
just looking at bet365 & Kane is listed as shortest price for 1st goalscorer tonight? what do they know??
 
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