The Wembley factor
When Arsenal had to play their Champions League home ties at Wembley in 1998-99 and 1999-2000, Arsène Wenger and his players said all the right things about how the national stadium ought to lift them. It was only some time after the event that they revealed their true feelings. Wenger and Ray Parlour used the word “nightmare”, while Emmanuel Petit called it a “disaster”. Arsenal lost three of their six matches at Wembley and they failed to advance in the competition. It will be interesting to see whether – or, more likely, when – their Tottenham counterparts follow suit and say what they really think about their Wembley experiment. Because, make no mistake, they have not been comfortable there this season.
On one level, it defies logic that playing at one of the greatest venues in world sport should serve as a negative. It is the dream of every football-obsessed kid in England to one day make it to Wembley. For Tottenham, the roomier playing surface promised to make it easier to find broader angles of attack to break down deep-sitting opponents. But footballers are creatures of extreme habit and Tottenham have found the transition from the tight and atmospheric confines of White Hart Lane to be jarring. Despite the club doing everything possible to make Wembley feel like home – and it should be noted that the atmospheres generated by the record attendances have been decent – it has felt alien and even a little onerous. Tottenham have found it difficult to impose their pressing game on the bigger pitch. The club’s return of four points from their three Champions League away ties has represented a positive. It is the zero from two at Wembley – against Monaco and Bayer Leverkusen – that shines a light on why they are out of the competition.
The depth of the squad
Mauricio Pochettino did not pull his punches after the 2-1 defeat at Monaco on Tuesday night had confirmed Tottenham’s exit. The manager spoke about how his players had struggled to cope with the twin demands of the Premier League, where every game is relentless and seems to go down to the wire, and the Champions League, where focus of an even greater level is required. There have been several illustrations of the strain but consider the most recent: Tottenham had needed stoppage time to win an intense derby at home to West Ham United on Saturday evening and the squad that travelled to Monaco on Monday were still licking their wounds. In the training session that evening, Pochettino effectively had to fitness test several of his stars – including Harry Kane, Mousa Dembélé, Dele Alli and Jan Vertonghen – and, at the same time, prepare a starting XI for the game. It was not easy.
Last season Pochettino’s squad seemed immune to injuries; this time, they have not, and Kane and Toby Alderweireld have missed three games apiece in the Champions League. Many more have been unavailable or nursed knocks and played at less than 100%. It has come to feel like a slog and Pochettino has needed to dig deep within his ranks for the answers. He has not found them and his comments after the latest loss to Monaco were revealing. “If we are in the Champions League next season, maybe we need to make some changes,” Pochettino said. “Maybe, we need to add more quality to our squad. We have quality, yes; to compete in the Premier League, yes. But when you have some problems or injuries, it’s always difficult to be competitive in the Premier League and Champions League.”
The impact of the summer signings
When Pochettino took Victor Wanyama from Southampton in June, there were those who wondered where he would feature. The manager, after all, had the outstanding Eric Dier in defensive midfield. But Pochettino knew that it was essential to bulk up because the Champions League would place so many more demands upon his squad and the increased competition for places would also be no bad thing. The wisdom of the Wanyama signing has been borne out, with Dier having come to be needed further back to cover selection problems in central defence. Wanyama has routinely cut an imposing figure.
But what of the other new boys? To put it bluntly, they have done little to seize their opportunities or ease the burden on the regulars. Vincent Janssen has flickered in the Champions League, most notably during the first half of the 0-0 draw at Leverkusen but he has not been decisive and the longer he remains without a goal in open play, the more insistent the comparisons to Roberto Soldado, the club’s popular but ineffective former striker, will become. Georges-Kévin Nkoudou was signed to provide a game-changing option on the wings but Pochettino has trusted him with only 40 minutes in the Champions League, across two cameos as a substitute, and then there is Moussa Sissoko. The £30m midfielder has started only once in the Champions League and anybody who saw his performance in the debacle against Leverkusen at Wembley will remember it for all the wrong reasons.
The squad’s mentality
If one incident summed up the lack of savvy that Tottenham have shown in this season’s Champions League, it came in the 53rd minute of the Monaco game on Tuesday night. Kane had just equalised for 1-1 from the penalty spot and Monaco had got the ball back for the restart. Four passes later, and Thomas Lemar had set himself to shoot past Hugo Lloris for what proved to be the winning goal. Unsurprisingly, Pochettino was furious. It is sometimes said that it takes time for players to adapt to the rhythms and pressures of the Champions League – possibly two or more campaigns – although Tottenham’s class of 2010-11 did not do too badly the last time out.
It frequently comes down to unwavering levels of concentration, so that when the decisive moments arrive at either end, the player is ready to deliver. Tottenham, however, have pockmarked their ties this season with basic individual errors and how they have been punished for the failure to take crucial chances or for their lapses at the back. “I told you from the beginning of the season that our challenge would not be physical or tactical – it would be to manage our minds,” Pochettino said, after the second Monaco game. “I don’t think we have showed enough quality to go to the next round but it doesn’t mean we don’t have quality in our feet. We need to improve our mentality.”
The lack of creativity
Pochettino has frequently lamented his team’s lack of ruthlessness in front of goal and there have been moments during the Champions League campaign when they have fluffed their lines. Son Heung-min and Kane missed clear chances in the home loss to Monaco, Alli headed off-target when gloriously placed at Leverkusen and Son, again, could not finish in the early running away to Monaco. It is telling, though, that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand and, even worse, is the statistic that shows Tottenham have scored only once from open play – Son’s winner at CSKA Moscow. Their other goals have been Alderweireld’s header from a corner at home to Monaco and Kane’s penalty in the away tie.
The greatest disappointment of the campaign has been Tottenham’s inability to ask searching questions of their opponents. There have been occasional purple patches but nothing on a consistent basis, not enough guile and sophistication. Midway through the group, after three matches, they looked well set, with the point at Leverkusen feeling like a good one. But the successive dead-ends against Leverkusen at Wembley and Monaco in the south of France have triggered one of those bouts of soul-searching with which Tottenham supporters are so familiar.
