Did Pochettino make the right personnel selections for Tottenham?
By Gary Pearson
You could hear groans of discontent from some supporters and voracious cheers from others following the announcement of Tottenham’s Champions League final starting 11.
Mauricio Pochettino’s personnel decisions obviously caused divided opinion among supporters, many of whom chastized the Argentine for what they thought were errors in judgement that may have cost Tottenham a favourable outcome.
Would the outcome of the match differed had Pochettino started with a slightly altered team? It’s an impossible question to answer, but it wasn’t because of Pochettino’s team selection that the result went Liverpool’s way.
Leaving an in-form Lucas Moura on the bench was the only clear-cut wrong decision. Moura, whose heroic second half hat trick against Ajax was the main reason Spurs qualified for the final, deserved to be on the pitch from kickoff.
Conversely Dele Alli, who, bar an assist on Moura’s last-gasp winner in Amsterdam, endured a miserable spell in the latter stages of the 2018-19 campaign, did not.
The other outwardly contentious decisions, focussing on Harry Kane, Harry Winks and Christian Eriksen, were all correct.