Mauricio Pochettino admits mistake in Tottenham’s semi-final defeat

Follow us on Google Discover

Tottenham Hotspur go into the second-leg of their Champions League semi-final 1-0 down after suffering a defeat on Tuesday.

Mauricio Pochettino has admitted to BT Sport’s live post-match coverage of Tottenham’s Champions League semi-final first-leg tie with Ajax (broadcast on 30/4 from 19:00) that he made a mistake starting the game with a back three.

Spurs have a mountain to climb if they hope to reach the final of the competition as the Eredivisie side picked up another away win in the knockout stages, having previously beaten both Real Madrid and Juventus at their own grounds.

The decisive goal came early on when Donny van de Beek found the bottom corner after being played in. By that stage, it was not a big surprise that Ajax took the lead. In fact, it was probably a greater surprise that they only take the one away goal into the second-leg as they dominated the early stages.

Spurs largely struggled all night, but they did have more success once they switched from a back three to a back four during the first-half. And after the full-time whistle, Pochettino conceded that he got his tactics wrong.

“Yeah, of course,” he told BT Sport when asked if he made an error with his lineup. “Watching the game, of course I can accept that it was a mistake maybe to start in the shape that we used. But there was not too many options today. I am not happy. You cannot guess if we play with different shapes, maybe we play in a different way. I can accept that.

“But I think it was a lack of energy from the beginning, that lack of aggression, a little bit sloppy, because it is not the shape [that leads to the way] we concede the goal.”

Given that Tottenham did struggle, they may be able to reflect positively on the fact that they find themselves only one goal behind heading into the second-leg.

It is obviously not ideal. But an early goal in the Netherlands changes the complexion of the tie completely. And they can take heart from the fact that Ajax are yet to win a home knockout game in this year’s competition.