The influence graphic has rarely told such a flattering tale.
Gone were was the run into the ground back four and the midfield full of bit part players.
Context.
What we saw was a an impressive display across the middle of the park that one wouldn’t ordinarily expect when playing Barcelona at the Non Camp.
Whilst it was ‘only a draw’, I can assure you my joy isn’t fuelled by relief. This was a performance to be wholly proud of on its own merits.
Winks and Eriksen were outstanding, good god, even Danny Rose finally got his act together.
If there is a single one of those ‘what did we learn?‘ things to be deciphered from last night, then it is that Tottenham doesn’t need Eric Dier in midfield any more.
Mousa was essentially gone two seasons ago and there’s a severe question mark over Wanyama’s future.
Noting will happen in January, and so it is down to whoever is still here in the summer to ship in a tough and intelligent READY TO GO guy to dominate our midfield.
Spurs xG was 1.84 opposed to Barca’s 1.35 which only serves to underline our credibility.
Tottenham had sharper shooting boots on. We took 16 shots, with 6 on target. Barcelona made 13 attempts with just 3 on target.
Just look at this little lot. All the real business was being done by the midfield boys, opposed to the back line playing some interminable game of pass the parcel.
This was against Barcelona away, (did I mention that?) and something to be hugely proud of.
Regular readers will be familiar with my contempt for possession statistics, however this graphic tells a very honest story.
In the second half, Barcelona able to get back into it, and were only trading blows from a position of advantage and barely dipped beneath 50% at the worst.
Again, this wasn’t Stoke, it was one of the world’s finest sides where one MUST use possession effectively and we did just that. Just hanging onto the ball against this lot would achieve nothing.
We’ll take a look at few individual performances across the remainder of day.
