With 5 first team players watching the game in London, Spurs flew to Russia and beat Champions League regulars CSKA Moscow.
The main thing I learned from the game is that Champions League scheduling works for us much better than that of the Europa League. We appeared in far better shape physically than we have done.
Otherwise, it wasn’t anyone’s finest hour as far as the football was concerned.
CSKA weren’t as good as Monaco were offensively, and unfortunately for them, we were so gormless ourselves that Son’s trickle-in goal kinda summed the night up.
Our makeshift midfield wasn’t really tested at all, when it was the quality of Alderweireld stood proud.
Spurs were more soporific than supersonic. Dele hit the crossbar, but either side of this momentous occasion, he delivered an incredibly frustrating performance.
That was all he delivered.
It was a Spurs performance marred by errant passing and naff decision making. Tripper is actually less intuitive in his thinking than Bonzo.
We pressed, after a fashion, but it rarely achieved anything other than a loss of possession.
The decision to take the grimly determined Janssen off was probably the best for all concerned, but my heart sank at the time.
A note here; I don’t believe that it is any coincidence that Mousa not playing has such a disproportionately negative impact on Kane’s form and Vinny is also struggling without him too.
Was this a better performance than the one against Middlesbrough? Yes it was, marginally.
N’Cluedo came on and his pace turned a good number of Spurs fans into the same screaming teenage girls that greeted the Beatles when they went to the States.
He did actually achieve anything and so my little lacy panties stayed quite dry.
For Leverkusen I may seek out a pair of robust belly warming period pants.
