Last night’s Europa League clash was a severe test for José Mourinho and a Tottenham side that had been scrabbling for positives as they reclaimed their form against Premier League welterweights and extremely poor cup-tie opponents. Dinamo Zagreb offered a different proposition altogether, especially in their physicality. Spurs’ wit and spirit rose above the rough and tumble.
The Dinamo coach’s line about Harry Kane being a master has been doing the rounds, but he spoke even more favourably, and I found some quotes from his presser via the Croatian outlet., Novilist.
Mamic acknowledged that Spurs had difficulty creating opportunities and that in some respects, the Croatians had managed to stall the grind. And that his boys failed to take their chances. Of course, in the return leg, there will be no alternative but to attack.
Make no mistake, Tottenham will have to maintain these levels of intensity if they are going to progress in this or any other competition.
All good points. However, against Liverpool we were sat ridiculously deep in the first half right from kick off. Second half we came out and were much better.
Sitting in just doesn’t suit us, at any time. Jose might have been forced to admit this and change the focus.
Baltic nations play the right way, or used too….when you can’t keep your talent it becomes impossible.
Yes, surely a formality.
Zagreb certainly had a game plan to target our ball players last night.N’Dombele was a specific target and with a less lenient referee we could have ended up against 9 men.However we were not intimidated and ran out worthy winners.
Apart from Jose, the players themselves came out saying that dropping deep after a goal wasn’t what he wanted them to do. Maybe he wanted them to play like this all along but they couldn’t – for whatever reason – keep it up for 90 minutes? And maybe – just like he was often lambasted for the poor performances – he deserves credit now that we’ve begun improving?
Anyway, it’s a strange one. We had decent 90-minute performances at home VS Burnley, Palace, Dinamo, Wolfsberger, but when we went to Fulham, we produced a first-half-only special and did nothing in the second – and not for the first time. Wolves away, Palace away, Fulham at home and away just off the top of my head. I don’t know why, but let’s just hope we’ve figured things out now.
Zagreb played some nice football last night.They played around us and through us on numerous occasions.We even suffered this in some games in the group stage.
However the problem that these technically gifted sides from lower level leagus have in common is in the final third,and this is where our class told.Their main striker fluffed his big occasion.
I think in the second half they sat back more in the hope that a 1-0 loss was acceptable to take into the second leg.That played into our hands.
Job well done and 2-0 should be enough to see us through.It was pleasing to see some of the squad players showing good form in the match as well,particularly Davies.
Don’t be shy IGGHC, believe your eyes, they weren’t up to much. If we don’t go through it will be because we handed it to them.
[…] Last night’s Europa League clash was a severe test for José Mourinho and a Tottenham side that had been scrabbling for positives as they reclaimed their form against Premier League welterweights and extremely poor cup-tie opponents. Dinamo Zagreb offered a different proposition altogether, especially in their physicality. Spurs’ wit and spirit rose above the rough and tumble, reports the BoyHotspur. […]
The old Yugoslavian sides were tough and technically brilliant back when they kept their stars, now any decent teenager is shipped off to greener pastures mostly. Sadly.
I have to say I’m struggling to fathom when Dinamo Zagreb became a tough examination in europe. They’re better than Wolfsberger granted, but the build up talk about this side has been odd. They dominate their division but even in the last few months have lost at home to Sibenik and Rijeka…..this isn’t anything but a tie Jose and his team should be winning and winning comfortably.
Jose has dropped the low-block nonsense and the players are responding. Probably because they begged him to…
We should go through.
hmmm we’ve history of bottling it remember!
BUT yes I agree – It’s a tough game but going in with a 2-0 lead puts is in a great position to go through to the next round. Fingers crossed!
They can come out and attack us all they want. It’ll just leave loads of space to attack and I’m sure we’ll see this through.