Mauricio Pochettino: Tottenham Must Learn and Improve
Mauricio Pochettino pulled no punches on his assessment of Tottenham’s loss to AS Monaco on Wednesday night.
Trailing 2-1 at half-time, Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino decided to bring on Mousa Dembélé and change his team’s tactics after it wasn’t working for the first 45 minutes.
From the second half until the end of the match, Spurs were inching closer to an equalizer but the 2-1 scoreline eventually remained the same.
The dressing room felt disappointed with the result. So too, did the fans and Pochettino himself. For everyone watching, it was obvious that a two-goal deficit in the opening 31 minutes would be difficult to come back from.
Mistakes proved costly for Tottenham in the first half.
“I think I’d agree with everyone watching the game, we feel very disappointed,” Mauricio Pochettino said (via Spurs’ official site).
“We started very well and created a few chances to score but then the way we conceded the goals disappointed me a lot because in the Champions League, you cannot concede the goals how we conceded.”
“We need look at ourselves and be more critical because it was our mistakes how we conceded the goals. It was easy for Monaco to score.”
On both goals for Monaco, they capitalized on Spurs’ minor errors.
The first was an ill-advised pass by Érik Lamela deep in Spurs’ own half. The Argentine winger may have forced the issue to get a quick counter going, but in his haste, the pass was intercepted.
Bernardo Silva’s 15th minute strike stunned a record crowd at Wembley Stadium.
Tottenham would open things up and match Monaco’s pace to find an equalizer after going down by a goal, but just after the half-hour mark, a long ball played to Thomas Lemar bounced unluckily for Spurs.
The ball fell behind Ben Davies and Jan Vertonghen after Davies challenged Lemar in the air to disrupt the midfielder. When both players landed on the ground, Lemar reacted quicker to find the ball and smashed home Monaco’s second goal of the game.
Lamela had a costly mistake, whereas Davies and Vertonghen were unlucky.
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These two incidents cost Tottenham an early deficit to begin the game.
There was still plenty of time to level the game, though losing possession of the ball and multiple missed opportunities in the second half eventually added up, dooming Spurs in their return to the Champions League.
Spurs were the better side statistically speaking, but that wasn’t enough to win the game.
“We were better than Monaco and you can see that in all the stats but in football, you pay when you make mistakes and we paid today because we conceded two goals from two shots on target,” Pochettino said.
“At the same time, I think we created chances but we weren’t clinical enough.”
Son Heung-Min had a chance to score the game’s opening goal. Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Jan Vertonghen had chances to pull them level in the second half.
Despite all of these chances, Spurs’ shots would either barely miss or go straight to Danijel Subašić, who made some quality saves too.
This is only the opening game of the Champions League group stage and while a loss is disappointing, there’s still five more matches left to play for.
For the time being, Mauricio Pochettino knows that his side must learn and improve quickly. How they respond against Sunderland this Sunday could show where they’re at mentally.
“We need to learn and we need to improve,” Pochettino said.
“It’s a shame because today was a fantastic day to share with our fans, to give a victory and a good performance, so we feel disappointed because the result wasn’t how we expected.”
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“It’s true we still have an opportunity. This was the first game, but we need to learn a lot and quickly.”
“We need to play with more passion, more hunger, we cannot concede and we need to be more aggressive, it’s our responsibility to improve a lot.”
While the Argentine manager’s words sting, it’s true that Tottenham can’t concede goals the way they did against Monaco if they wish to advance further into the knockout stages.