Alan Shearer has criticised Tottenham Hotspur boss Mauricio Pochettino for playing Harry Winks and Harry Kane in the Champions League final.
Alan Shearer has told The Sun that he imagines that Harry Kane had been in Mauricio Pochettino’s ear all week leading up to the Champions League final in an attempt to make sure that he led the line for Tottenham in Madrid.
Pochettino appeared to be in an extremely difficult position heading into the final with Liverpool regarding who started up front for Spurs. Kane had returned to fitness ahead of the game but had not played during the final weeks of the domestic season, while Lucas Moura had produced the hat-trick that got Tottenham to the final in the first place.
Ultimately, Kane got the nod. And while we will never know whether the result would have been any different had Moura played, it is fair to say that Kane did not manage to produce the kind of performance that vindicated his selection as Liverpool won 2-0.
And Shearer hinted that he felt that the decision to play both Winks and Kane was a costly error.
“I imagine Harry was in Pochettino’s ear all week and he has had a week to judge it based on seeing him in training. I’ve been in the same situation myself,” he told The Sun.
“He may never feature in a European Cup final again so he would have been desperate to play. But you have to judge him on his performance and he simply wasn’t 100 per cent fit.
“Harry Winks was exactly the same — he hadn’t played for over two months yet he was risked to start in such a huge game for the club.
“To play one was a gamble, to play two who haven’t played for that long was a huge risk and it didn’t pay off.”
In fairness to Pochettino, the criticism he has got from some for playing Kane would have probably been nothing like the criticism he would have received had it been Lucas who started and Tottenham produced a similar performance.
Kane has the ability to make a devastating impact even when he is not fully fit, so starting him ahead of the Brazilian arguably looked to be the safer bet.
Kane may have been sidelined towards the end of the season, but none of the players had played a competitive game for almost three weeks leading up to the final either, so those criticising Pochettino should perhaps remember that Lucas may not have been as sharp as he had been against Ajax anyway.
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