Glenn Hoddle has insisted on BT Sport that he was “baffled” by Mauricio Pochettino’s gung-ho tactics in Tottenham’s 2-1 Champions League defeat to Inter Milan on Tuesday night.
Late goals from Mauro Icardi and Matias Vecino cancelled out Christian Eriksen’s opener as Spurs fell to their third consecutive defeat following setbacks against Liverpool and Watford.
Spurs legend Hoddle, who was on punditry duty for broadcaster BT Sport, explained on their live coverage that Spurs were putting themselves under extra pressure through their build-up play.
“Playing out from the back is baffling me,” Hoddle said. “They’re away from home at Inter Milan. Don’t take the risks that they’re taking. Play it safer.”
OPINION
You can understand the point ex-Spurs and England manager Hoddle is making. The visitors made it easier for the hosts at times through play out from the back, initially via centre-backs Davinson Sanchez and Jan Vertonghen. It is a tactic that makes more sense that Toby Alderweireld is in the starting XI. He is far more comfortable on the ball than Sanchez, whose strength is in winning the ball and giving it to others more gifted technically. Pochettino has assembled an easy-on-the-eye team partly through Spurs’ aggressive and front-foot style, which is aimed at getting the best out of ball players like Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli as well as goal king Harry Kane. But football logic suggests that a team under the cosh and fighting for a result adapts and tweaks their method in front of 70,000 people in one of European football’s most iconic stadiums. Tottenham could have got back to winning ways had they been more savvy in Milan.