Prescription I Needed was for Watching Tottenham

At half time I popped out to fill a prescription at the local pharmacy, but in Tottenham's return to the Champions League, the pain I was feeling was watching the tactical blunders of our promising manager Mauricio Pochettino.  One day in the distant future, PSG will lure this huge managerial prospect and this manager would have cut his teeth on days like this.

The first surprise was that he had made no changes to the team that beat Stoke City 4-0 on the weekend, even though Dembele was fit and Harry Kane is still carrying much mental fatigue.  Kane was left to powder puff his chances, as were other Spurs players who did not learn from the ruthless killer instincts of their French opposition. 

For sure Monaco at the opening of the French league sit on top of their division and for sure that our manager has expressed his desire to manager Paris St. Germain, the team that in sheer amount of money is expected to win the French title again this year and who are expected to go further in the Champions League, possibly as a finalist.  That cannot be said about the blunder bus that was the Tottenham formation as the game kicked off.

Monaco within the first half were two goals to the good, two shots, two goals - it was like a knife going through butter - and all this time our manager had Dembele on the substitution bench, while he figured because Heung Min Son could score against Stoke, he could score against Monaco - Stoke are rooted at the bottom of the league, someone should have shown him a French league table and where the tiny principality of Monaco sit in present rankings.

The three substitutes are exactly the names I would have thought should have come onto the field - but Dembele should never have been a substitute, because Son should never have been in the starting 11.   Harry Kane should not be on the field either - somehow Pochettino seems to be so close to the players, he cannot hear what most people are thinking - the great Harry Kane is burned out right now and needs an extended rest period. 

This is why they purchased Dutch player Janssen - and playing at Wembley was nothing new for him - Janssen had scored for the Holland when they played England in a friendly, and it would have done his confidence a well of goodness had he been selected to play as Spurs lone striker. Instead when the game was already done and dusted, he decided to continue the experiment of laying Janssen and Kane together.  It was blind hope - a natural striking partnership is still far from naturally forming and it is wishful thinking on our managers part to think it can be so.

Sissoko as much as I think his transfer fee was over-paid, should have been substituted for Harry Kane, being that Janssen was on the field.  Instead Pochettino made a strange decision, pulling off the ever dependable Eric Dier - a player who like Dembele serves as a lynch pyn at the middle of the Spurs team - except Dembele is the lynch pyn for the attack, and Dier is the lynch pyn for the defence.  Sissoko did make one effective run, only for the other tired looking England player Deli Alli to yet again fluff his lines, in a game of fluffy Tottenham football. 

If Pochettino could instill a killer finish instinct in his Tottenham players, that is better than bouncing up and down on the touchline like self-tortured rabbit.  My prescription medicine was a cream but there is nothing I could have taken that could wipe away my great disappointment on a day when Spurs broke the Champions League attendance record for a game played in England.  Before the game Pochettino was singing from the same hymn sheet of his chairman, that having 85,000 paid tickets showed that Tottenham are one of the big boy.s

As much as Spurs fans love Pochettino, Arsenal fans are reserving judgement until their daggers come out forJulius Ceasar ( I mean Arsene Wenger).  Yet Arsenal are off to a draw in their opening Champions League game against PSG, while Spurs tactics left Monaco walking away from Wembley as if someone had given them an early Christmas present.  There is no point in Pochettino making a remark about "Spurs is a big club" if they led into battle with a payroll that should technically make them a club that should be finishing 6th to 10th in the premier league.

Ironically, a Moroccan player fell to a 3rd minute injury, so the omens looked good for Spurs when Monaco's No. 7 had to limp off the field, replaced by a 20 year old.  That was actually a good omen for Monaco, because in the big Wembley atmosphere, it is these 20 year olds who have yet to learn what fear is - and so they tend to play with wreckless abandonment - and he played with great energy - helping Monaco's best player [Bernado Silva] help himself with ruthless strike. 

For sure Arsenal fans will have a great smile on their face and feel no pity or spare any thought to the latest Tottenham failure, but they too must remember that they lost 3-1 at home to Monaco, and today Spurs home was actually Wembley.  85,000 fans subjected to more misery.

One thing for sure is that Mauricio Pochettino is ruthless in training, and yet on this big Wembley pitch, neither the fact that Tottenham's wages rank well above Monaco's - and that Tottenham should have been the fitter side, mattered not one hill of beans, Monaco had control of the game because the Spurs manager did not have control of his tactics.  Chalk this one as a learning experience for Pochettino - but chalk this one as "same old, same old" for Spurs fans who do need a prescription against constant disappointments.  When will that finally change?

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