Harry Kane and Kevin Wimmer Agree that Tottenham Did Not Play Well
Tottenham’s performance yesterday was not good and Harry Kane and Kevin Wimmer both explained their thoughts on what went wrong.
After winning a penalty in the 51st minute, Tottenham’s hopes of advancing into the Champions League’s knockout stage were still alive. Harry Kane, who drilled his shot to equalize 1-1 in the 52nd minute, would have been content to at least leave Monaco with a point.
Then, only 16 seconds later, everything came crashing down instantly.
AS Monaco quickly went on the attack and punished Spurs in three easy steps: a long diagonal ball, a cross and a volley. Right after the match restarted.
All the hard work that Mauricio Pochettino’s side did to get back into the match was all for naught.
When Kane was asked about his thoughts after Tottenham conceded in the 53rd minute, his disappointment was visible. Spurs didn’t play great and were punished for not showing up in a must-win game in the Champions League.
“It’s disappointing, obviously,” Harry Kane said (via Spurs’ official site).
“I don’t think we were good enough today anyway but we got ourselves back in the game, got the momentum back and that’s where we’ve got to try and push and get another goal and try to grind out a win.”
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“Because we weren’t great. But, conceding straight away knocked the stuffing out of us and we didn’t have enough to come back into the game.”
“Obviously we’re gutted, we wanted to go far in this competition and we’re all disappointed but it’s something we’ll have to deal with, dust ourselves down and get ready for the weekend.”
Kevin Wimmer shared the same sentiments as Kane. Noting that they didn’t create enough chances. Even with 62 percent possession, Spurs mustered only six shots.
A dismal amount when Pochettino’s teams have generally be the ones to completely overwhelm their opposition by amassing at least 10-plus shots in the Premier League.
Now, the Premiership is not on the same level as the Champions League, but Spurs can and have created plenty of scoring chances before. Finishing is their only problem. Both became issues yesterday which Wimmer goes on to explain.
“In the first half we had a big early chance, but it’s true, we didn’t create a lot of chances. We didn’t put a lot of pressure on Monaco and overall, over the 90 minutes, it wasn’t enough.”
It was a difficult night on the road, where Spurs have continued to battle against injuries and players out of form. But these facts — or excuses, however you want to look at it — can only be used as just that, excuses.
At some point Mauricio Pochettino must get his players back to playing their best and it always starts up top with the manager before it trickles down to the players.
Next: Tottenham Player Ratings: 2-1 Loss at Monaco
With the realization that Spurs’ Champions League campaign is over, Kevin Wimmer has the right state of mind, move on from this game and look forward to Chelsea this Saturday in Tottenham’s third consecutive London derby in the Premier League.
“We knew we had to win this game but we didn’t play well,” Wimmer said. “It was a tough game, very difficult. We’re all disappointed that we lost.”
“We have to keep our heads up because we have another big game at Chelsea on Saturday and we have to see that as the next chance to get a positive result. That’s what we’ll look for.”