UEFA Champions League 2019/20: 3 reasons why Tottenham drew with Olympiacos

#2 Tottenham’s defence was equally flimsy

Olympiacos' goals - including Mathieu Valbuena's penalty - were both avoidable

At 0-2 up and with the crowd in the Karaiskakis Stadium largely quietened, it felt like this game would be business as usual for Tottenham. But for the second time this season, they allowed their opponents to score on the stroke of half-time, shifting the momentum of the game entirely and bringing the raucous crowd back alive.

Daniel Podence and Mathieu Valbuena – who were already combining to give the left side of Tottenham’s defence plenty of problems – teamed up once again to finally break through on 44 minutes. Podence took his chance excellently, slotting the ball low and hard past Hugo Lloris into the right-hand corner of the goal, but the defensive aspect for Spurs was questionable, with Ben Davies and Jan Vertonghen parting like the Red Sea as Podence ran through.

Things would get worse, though. While Jan Vertonghen’s tackle on Valbuena to concede the second-half penalty that proved to be the deciding goal was sloppy, the incident was entirely the fault of Christian Eriksen, who dallied on the ball on the edge of the box before losing it to an opposing player.

Tottenham’s two goals should definitely have been avoidable for Olympiacos, but equally Spurs should easily have avoided the Greek side’s comeback.