Spurs Achilles heel struck in the Champions League Final

Spurs Achilles heel struck in the Champions League Final

The dust has settled on our UEFA Champions League final defeat to Liverpool 2-0.

It was a defeat we didn't deserve, but then again we didn't deserve to win either.

The handball was dodgy, giving it didn't comply with the current rules, but the new rules that come into affect this season and Sadio Mane was offside for the second goal but presumably deemed not to be interfering with play in an opponents penalty box!

Officials simply don't understand the game of football, you at times wonder whether any of them have actually played the game at all.

Anyway, we didn't perform, we were very poor in front of goal, continually making the wrong choice of pass, coupled with poor movement.

If I were to single out one reason why we lost, it would again be movement. We showed it in the semi-final when Ajax were by far the better team and 3-0 up on us on aggregate.

I'm not picking on this individual player, it just demonstrates my point.

In the second half, after Harry Winks had gone off, Jan Vertonghen had the ball halfway between our penalty box and the halfway line in plenty of space. While he could see Danny Rose there was a Liverpool playing covering the passing angle.

What did Danny Rose do?

Nothing. he didn't move, had he dropped back two or three yards towards his goal, Jan would have had a passing option. That was the same with other players going forward, they weren't moving in midfield to give Jan options.

This is why you see us keep passing between Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld or even back to Hugo Lloris. Our movement isn't good enough when we have the ball at the back, thus our build-up play can be ponderous.

When Harry Winks is in the side he comes to receive the ball and is moving their players about. However, we need more than one doing this and it is an area we need to work on on the training ground.

It affects too many of our games, that are rolling the ball to each other too slow.

These are not new problems, I have highlighted them before on several occasions, but they were in evidence when it mattered most on the big occasion.

---