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#3 Some of Spurs’ key players struggled
The main takeaway from this game for me was that Tottenham’s players should’ve been far better than their Olympiacos counterparts, if only they’d been on top form. Mathieu Valbuena and Daniel Podence were outstanding as was defender Ruben Semedo, but outside of that, the Greek side didn’t offer all that much.
The problem was that a handful of Tottenham’s key players had poor games, making this a far tougher match than it really should’ve been. Most notably, Christian Eriksen had a terrible game and was very lucky not to have been substituted.
Much has been made of the Dane’s talents this season – particularly as it looked like he’d be departing North London before the transfer window closed earlier in the month – but despite all the talk of Spurs being toothless without him, tonight he showed nothing of his talents. He seemed to misplace almost every pass he made, and was constantly caught taking too much time on the ball by Olympiacos’ defenders and midfielders.
People will perhaps point at Harry Kane, who had a quiet game, but when a player performing as badly as Eriksen is the man expected to provide him with chances, what could the England captain really do?
Eriksen wasn’t the only disappointment, though; Dele Alli also didn’t look completely sharp, understandable given he hasn’t played much this season yet, while Tanguy Ndombele very much resembled a player returning from an injury layoff.
The other issue was purely of Pochettino’s doing. Although he didn’t affect Spurs negatively from a defensive point of view, Davinson Sanchez had another weak game as a right-back, simply coming in too narrow throughout the game and blunting Spurs’ right-sided attacks. Quite why Serge Aurier – who was outstanding in the weekend’s 4-0 win over Crystal Palace – was left at home is anyone’s guess.
