Tony Cascarino claimed Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino managed like a rookie against Liverpool as he selected the wrong team.
The talkSPORT pundit admitted that the Spurs manager had to get all his decisions right ahead of the clash with Liverpool in order to win the Champions League, and suggested Pochettino had gotten it all wrong on Saturday.
“I thought Poch had a lot of decisions to make, obviously fitness of certain players, what formation he goes with and I thought he had to get all of them right to win the game or the Champions League,” stated Cascarino on talkSPORT (7:11am, Sunday June 2nd).
“I thought like his team last night who are very inexperienced of being there in that major final, I felt he managed like a rookie last night and I mean by selecting players.”
Cascarino highlighted the decision to play Harry Kane by Pochettino as being one of the mistakes the Spurs boss made, but then opted to defend the forward a little by slamming the performances of Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli.
“I’ll give Kane a bit of defence because of the players behind him, Christian Eriksen didn’t do too much and Dele Alli had a very average game couldn’t find any space to really make a difference in certain areas of the pitch, so those players struggled,” said Cascarino on talkSPORT (07:13, Sunday June 2nd).
OPINION
Cascarino is harsh to say Pochettino managed like a rookie but there’s no denying he got some decisions wrong on Saturday. Firstly the Spurs boss, in hindsight, was wrong to start Kane instead of Lucas Moura as the English forward barely threatened Liverpool’s goal. Pochettino then made another bad decision when he opted not to bring Kane off as soon as he realised the 25-year-old wasn’t at the races. While the Spurs boss’s decision to start Kane perhaps would have been slammed more if he removed the attacker from the game at half-time, that’s exactly what he should of done. Everyone could tell by the time the half-time whistle blew that Kane wasn’t going to be able to make a positive difference. As for Cascarino’s defence of the attacker, he is being rather kind. While he is spot-on to point out Eriksen and Alli under-performed, Kane’s poor display was down to him.