Alan Shearer has slammed Mauricio Pochettino for omitting Toby Alderweireld from the Tottenham starting XI for their 4-2 Premier League defeat to Arsenal on Sunday.
The Premier League record goalscorer told the Sun it was “strange and bizarre” that the Belgium international was on the bench at Emirates Stadium as he fielded the partnership of Juan Foyth and Jan Vertonghen in central defence for the first time.
Shearer insisted that Pochettino’s decision to leave out “his best defender backfired massively”.
“I just could not understand why Toby Alderweireld did not play in what was Spurs’ biggest game of the season so far,” Shearer wrote in his Sun column. “It was bizarre and a huge surprise.
“Whether he was trying to make a statement because Alderweireld’s contract expires at the end of the season and he has not signed a new one, I do not know.
“But it was a huge call to drop him and it massively backfired as the two players he decided to play at centre-half, Jan Vertonghen and Juan Foyth, were very poor.”
OPINION
Managers live or die by their selections, and Pochettino’s midas touch deserted him as Arsenal came from 2-1 down at half-time to secure a shock triumph against their bitter rivals. As Shearer points out, it was a mighty odd decision to leave out Alderweireld, Spurs’ outstanding defender, their best this season and in multiple other seasons. Foyth has made an impressive start to his career at the club and has showed the potential to achieve great things, but the north London derby demanded experience and pedigree. Alderweireld has oodles of both. It was a perplexing and unnecessary call, as the Belgian was certainly deemed fit enough, otherwise why else would he have been sat watching on from the bench as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and company ran riot? Is something going on behind the scenes outside of the unsigned contract? We’ll probably have to wait for Pochettino’s next book to find out the real truth.