Paul Merson told Sky Sports that Gareth Bale should have been substituted after ’20 minutes’ during Tottenham’s derby defeat on Sunday.
Jose Mourinho started with the left-footed speedster, who has been in fine form for Spurs in recent weeks, but he failed to make an impact on the match.
It was a strong and forward-thinking line-up from Mourinho from the get-go, which would have excited the Tottenham faithful.
That was touched upon by Merson, who felt Tottenham’s attacking set-up would cause Arsenal ‘a bit of trouble’, but when it didn’t work out, he was ‘quite shocked’ at Mourinho’s decision-making, such as not taking off Bale earlier.
“When I saw their team and Son, Gareth Bale, Harry Kane and Lucas Moura all playing I thought Arsenal could be in a bit of trouble,” said Merson.
“But I was quite shocked by Mourinho, to be honest as he’s the best at seeing things quickly and changing it but it didn’t happen.
“I’d be interested to see if it wasn’t Gareth Bale out on the right how quickly another player would have come off because I dread to think how many times Kieran Tierney and Smith Rowe got in behind.
“If it wasn’t Gareth Bale I think he would have been off after 20 minutes.”
It could be argued that one of Kieran Tierney or Emile Smith Rowe were Arsenal’s best players, which just goes to show how much trouble they caused Tottenham down that left-hand side.
It will be interesting to see if Bale keeps his place in Tottenham’s starting XI as they aim to progress through to the next round of the Europa League on Thursday.
They hold a two-goal cushion over Dinamo Zagreb, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem, but they will have to do without Heung-Min Son, who went off injured yesterday.
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