BBC Sport’s chief football writer, Phil McNulty, has slammed Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris for a bizarre moment during the club’s most recent game.
This week, Spurs returned to Champions League action as they hosted French outfit Marseille at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
In the first half of the game, the Ligue 1 side were probably the better team – with Tottenham only threatening occasionally on the break, which led to some frustration from the home crowd.
One moment that no doubt would have added to the tension in the stadium was when Lloris opted to punch the ball clear instead of catching it despite being under no pressure.
McNulty spotted the incident and took to Twitter to express his bafflement over the goalkeeper’s odd behaviour.
He wrote: “Spurs look ill at ease. Lloris farcical attempt at a punch with no one near him.”
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It seems as though the BBC Sport man wasn’t the only one to notice the strange decision from Lloris. Indeed, in the Evening Standard, it was noted that the Frenchman’s punch – done for ‘a reason only he knows’ – left the home supporters ‘not impressed’.
Considering the 35-year-old is the Tottenham captain and has made over 400 appearances for the Premier League club, his amateurish lapse in concentration is all the stranger.
Fortunately, sparing Lloris’ blushes, his mistake wasn’t the most notable error in the game, with Marseille’s Chancel Mbemba picking up a red card early on in the second half which helped swing the match in Spurs’ favour.