Darren Bent has blasted Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino’s decision to play Harry Kane in the Champions League final.
England captain Kane – who had been out since the start of April with an ankle injury – was selected ahead of Lucas Moura for the Madrid showpiece at the start of the month, despite Lucas Moura leading Spurs to the final with a hat-trick against Ajax.
Speaking on talkSPORT‘s Jim White programme [Thursday, 1:27pm], former Spurs striker Bent criticised the Argentine manager for making that decision.
“I wouldn’t have played him, just because obviously he wasn’t fully fit. If he’s 100% fit then you play him, that’s unquestionable,” the 35-year-old said.
“But after what Lucas Moura did in that semi-final, I just don’t see how you can tell a man who’s practically got us here with a hat-trick that you’re not playing in the final for maybe someone who’s not 100% fit.
“If it had worked and he’d have played well and scored then it’s not a mistake, but as it turned out it didn’t work. I just thought for Pochettino in those circumstances, he must have been able to find a place for Lucas Moura in that team.
“You cannot score a hat-trick in the semi-final and play as well as you did, single-handedly grab Spurs and take them to that final and then just leave him on the bench.
“For starters, his confidence is going to be gone, he’s going to be annoyed and angry and you’re not going to get the best out of him anyway when he comes on, which they didn’t. So for me that was probably the wrong decision.”
OPINION
In the end, it definitely proved to be the wrong decision for Spurs to play Kane ahead of Moura against Liverpool. The England international did not get a single sniff in the game and clearly looked unfit – or at least not ready to play in a game of this magnitude. Moura came on and had arguably Spurs’ best chance of the game, albeit a tame shot that was collected easily by Alisson. As Bent says, to say to Moura that, despite him playing such a key role in getting Spurs to Madrid, he would be sitting on the bench in the final must have been very tough to take for the striker. But it was a classic case of player power cropping up again. It always seemed that if Kane thought he was fit enough, he would effectively pick himself. And that was the wrong decision for the player to make.