Teddy Sheringham has called Tottenham striker Fernando Llorente out for significant praise, saying the substitute was “fantastic” against Ajax on Wednesday night.
Llorente was brought on in the 46th minute of Spurs’ Champions League semi-final second leg, of which Lucas Moura was the star after sending his side through to the final with an incredible hat-trick.
Speaking to Love Sport Radio, Sheringham hailed the impact of Llorente on Spurs’ performance, saying the Spaniard did everything right to help the visitors progress on away goals.
“I thought he was fantastic. He did get a bit of stick off all supporters, not just the Tottenham fans, since he’s come in,” the former player said on Love Sport Radio.
“But he was fantastic [against Ajax]. He headed it on when he needed to, held it up when he needed to and laid it off when he needed to. It was the perfect substitution to go on there and say: ‘look, this is not working tonight what we normally do because Ajax are a fantastic team, let’s change it up a bit and rattle them’.
“They’ve got a young centre-half who is a fantastic player in Matthijs de Ligt but he couldn’t handle the long ball up front. Then there’s Daley Blind who is about 5ft 5in as a centre half so it worked perfectly and it got them back into the game.”
OPINION
While Moura was – without a doubt – the star man in Spurs’ Champions League heroics with an amazing hat-trick, every Spurs player deserves credit for helping the North Londoners get over the line in such incredible fashion. And Llorente was one of those. Let’s face it – it wasn’t working for Spurs in the first half. Having gone two goals down and 3-0 down on aggregate after goals from Matthijs de Ligt and Hakim Ziyech, something needed to change as the hosts were having it all their own way. The introduction of Llorente gave those Ajax defenders something different to worry about with Victor Wanyama going off in his place and there now being another attacker to worry about. And it worked perfectly; while Llorente didn’t contribute any goals, his presence was felt, needed and ultimately paid off as Moura went onto dominate the second half and progress to the final with the last kick of the game.