Tactical Nous of Pochettino won the day

Tactical Nouse Of Pochettino Won The Day

What a fantastic night and it took a tactical change in both games to get us back into this tie, it wasn't all just guts and desire, the coach played a massive part.

Make no mistake, the players believe in the manager and the manager believes in his players.

Ajax totally outplayed us in the first half of both legs.

Trying to build from the back was not working because they pressed us and we simply didn't have enough movement from our midfielders to give the man on the ball passing options. That pressed us back to the goalkeeper and we had the same problem just from deeper on the field giving us an even bigger problem.

Two first halves constitute a hole game where we could not build from the back and were outplayed.

The solution was to play long balls. Now I hear experts, who should know better, telling us we were playing hoof and hope football which simply isn't true. It was tactical change and a necessary one.

Victor WanyamaI don't think is mentally quick enough for top 4 football, but in his defence, he and Eric Dier simply haven't had much football and are not the most mobile of players.

To run off at a tangent, I wonder if Dier will be returned to being a central defender, if we sign more central midfielders, with the emergence of Harry Winks.

Anyway back to the tactical change.

Sissoko can play as the defensive player or as we saw later, Eriksen as a quarter-back playmaker. Therefore, we could play a target man and play off the knockdowns with Son and Moura either side.

That meant we no longer had to play out from the back and that their midfield was too far up the field.

The Ajax manager didn't change his tactics to counteract ours and his team simply didn't know what to do. They left too big a gap between midfield and defence, which we exploited.

Llorente targetted Daley Blind and was winning ball after ball, backing into Blind who made it easy for him. How often did he come in front of Llorente, how often did the defensive midfielder drop in front of him so they could a) give him something to think about and b) compete for the knockdowns.

Llorente was taking balls on the chest and laying them off without really being challenged. One can only assume they didn't see him as a threat, but a lot of our attacks came as a result of initially playing the ball to him and feeing from there.

Pochettino made it a more physical game for the second half of both legs and as they survived the first leg without conceding, they tried the same tactics again. We, however, put the ball into the net and put them under mental pressure.

Two goals in 4 minutes to draw the game level tested their nerve, we won that battle.

Tactically it was fantastic by Pochettino, personnel changes, positional changes, tactical changes. That is exactly what he wants from Tottenham, a susyem, but players who can adapt to different systems.

That is what Sir Alex Ferguson wanted from Manchester United players and his scouting was for players who could handle that, intelligent players.

Congratulations lads.

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