Paul Merson has said that he’s worried for Tottenham in their Champions League semi-final against Ajax on Tuesday night.
Talking on the Debate (Sky Sports, Mon, 10pm), Merson said that he’d noticed some of the Spurs players looking like they were “running through treacle” in the defeat to West Ham on Saturday.
The 1-0 loss was Tottenham’s first in the new stadium.
“What Spurs have done is seriously good, because they’ve got a new stadium, kept all their players, struggled with injuries,” said Merson.
“You look on the bench and they haven’t got a lot of game changers for what they’ve done.
“It’s a shame, I really fancied them against Ajax, I really did… Tottenham will show them a lot of respect and I think if they had their best players they would definitely beat them.
‘Now, with the injuries and some of the players missing, I watched them play West Ham on Saturday and it looked like they were running through treacle some of the players.’
OPINION
Tottenham looked completely off their game on Saturday but we don’t think they’ll need any motivating for tonight. The adrenaline will kick in when the Champions League anthem starts and the enormity of the occasions sinks in. Every team has off games and although Tottenham did look leggy, they’ve had a decent rest having played the early kick-off on Saturday. We expect to see them at it from the very first whistle and we’re tipping them to win to nil tonight and keep a hugely important clean sheet to take to the second-leg. Like with Man City in the quarter-finals, that could be key, but taking a lead to protect is vital. The big question is who will Pochettino trust to lead the line tonight… Lucas Moura, Fernando Llorente or possibly even Vincent Janssen? We think it will be Llorente, who has proven his worth in vital Champions League ties before.