Baffled that we did not win against Olympiacos, admits Mauricio Pochettino
Mauricio Pochettino has admitted that he’s baffled as to why Tottenham didn't play to their full potential against Olympiacos in their first Champions League group stage game. The North Londoners conceded a late first-half goal, before a Mathieu Valbuena penalty saw the game end on level terms.
Despite going 2-0 up within 30 minutes, Tottenham still conceded two goals, to finish their first Champions League group stage game against Olympiacos on level terms. The home side did look the better side in the first half, but once the goals flew in, Tottenham dominated possession allowing the Greek side to play counter-attacking football.
That caused more problems than Mauricio Pochettino expected, with Jan Vertonghen and company struggling to hold the hosts. If it wasn’t for the fact that Olympiacos couldn’t finish their chances, things could have gotten much worse for Tottenham. They did have the same problem last season but with Red Star Belgrade and Bayern Munich coming up next, it could be problematic. Not just that, neither Christian Eriksen nor Tanguy Ndombele were able to get into the game, with both men struggling to keep up.
It left Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino baffled with the performance and even, as it's now the second consecutive away game where Tottenham have taken the lead only to concede and drop points, adding that he was shocked that his side was not able to keep up.
“I think it's easy to explain. When we are not showing that intensity that the competition demands we struggle. We are not talking about quality. We're talking about being focused, concentrated, aggressive, anticipating the action. How many times did we anticipate today? How many times we were not proactive like we were against Palace. That is a very good example in three days, it's a massive difference,” said Pochettino reports Sky Sports.
Despite finishing the game with only 46% possession, Olympiacos had 17 shots to Tottenham's 10, 6 successful crosses to Tottenham's 2, and conceded just 10 fouls to Tottenham's 14. That further irked the Argentine as he even went on to add that it’s not about quality or tactics but whether or not his side wanted to win the game and how much they were willing to fight for it.
“It's not about tactics, it's not about quality players, it's about the quality of preparing yourself to be ready to fight At this type of level you need to match the opponent in terms of intensity, aggression, in excitement and motivation and then is going to appear your quality when you are connected with the game. That's the first demand you need to work with. It's not only the responsibility of one person. It's everyone's responsibility and it's not possible to, in three days, how we start the game today be a massive difference. That is my disappointment. I feel disappointed for everyone,” concluded Pochettino.