Hugo Lloris has suggested that Tottenham punched above our weight to reach last season’s Champions League final.
The French goalkeeper also suggested that heartbreak from the loss to Liverpool in Madrid has also underpinned the squad’s difficulty in responding to the chaos that has followed this season.
“There is a risk when you go over your potential,” Lloris told Sky Sports. “Last season, we went on an incredible run in the Champions League and we finished the season on our knees. You don’t have time to recover from one season before you have to start a new one.
“And then there was the accumulation of things that provoked the situation and then a lot of injured players, the change of manager. It’s difficult to stay stable and to be always looking at the top.
“There is sometimes one season when everything goes against you. Maybe the consequence when you play four years making a huge effort to compete with the top teams and finish in the top four [every season], it’s a lot of accumulation and one season there is everything you cannot control. It can happen”
I don’t think Lloris has said anything wrong here. We probably had no right to reach the final when you look at us compared with some of Europe’s true elite. But that doesn’t mean he was right to say it. It’s all a bit self-repentant and leaders should be inspiring feelings of determination and retribution.
Beyond the Champions League final, the 33-year-old still sounds very inferior as the captain of a club with ambitions to win major trophies, highlighting the accumulation of effort exhausted in order to…make the top four.
Of course he is not solely to blame but having a skipper who is so defeatist is probably why we’ve rarely responded to setbacks with any vigour.
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The simple fact is,he’s not captain material.When things aren’t going well he never steps forward and rallies the troops.The problem is that without Kane there is really nobody else either.
It seems so logical when you put it like that.I wonder why we never think of that?
Amen to that.
When Liverpool had setbacks they went and signed one of the best centre backs in world football Virgil Van Dijk and followed that up by recruiting a world class goalkeeper in Alisson Becker. That’s how you deal with setbacks.