Pochettino played a strong side but lost 1-0 to Crystal Palace.
Alan Pardew is a very under-rated tactician & when Palace are good they’re very hard to beat.
I think he knew that if he was going to win at the Lane he would have to stop Spurs scoring. But he was aware not many teams do that against their forceful pressing game. Spurs love to win the ball early and give it quickly to Kane and Deli Alli, a pair of bang!bang! players who shoot early and hard.
That’s the way Spurs think, that’s the way they train, and it almost worked on Saturday.They had half a dozen chances but it was one of those days when no shot went in. They were a bit unlucky.
They could not bring Erik Lamela on to get the goal back because he’s been ill, missed the first leg against Fiorentina, and is doubtful for Thursday night.
At Palace, Zaha is playing more consistently. When he swerved infield in 45+1, I thought he was going to shoot. But he played in the overlapping Martin Kelly. The angle wasn’t good but the shot was. Kelly smashed the ball inside the near post.
Pochettino is more sportsmanlike in defeat than Wenger.
He just said that his team wasn’t clinical enough.
I thought Elneny played too safely against Hull, rather than like a playmaker who tries a longer passes to create a goal, while knowing he might give the ball away. But that was because Hull defended deep and narrow, inviting Arsenal to cross the ball, which Arsenal refused to do.
In football there are three principles of play: possession, support and penetration.
Wenger’s rather different modern philosophy holds that possession will eventually penetrate. That works in most games but not this one.
My younger brother Paddy explained the problem:
Hull posed no threat. But neither did Arsenal. One of their more tepid performances. To a degree it shows up the lack of depth in the squad, but more particularly, Arsenal’s style relies on players knowing who will make a run in behind the defence, and exactly when, or who will take a defender a yard to one side to make space for someone else to shoot. Fine margins against a packed defence like Hull. If you don’t play together regularly in games, these understandings decay.
Hull, of course, won’t play that way at home. Bruce’s pride, and the fans, won’t let them. So they’ll leave enough space behind for Arsenal to score with some ease.
Barcelona will be cautious away from home, they always are in England. But I don’t doubt the outcome of the tie.