Guido I do not want to be right we have different opinions. I have nothing but respect for the Spurs and the way they played. You have an incredible team and for large parts of both legs you dominated the game, I disagree with regards to the last 20 minutes after Juve's goals, but that does not change the overall picture. BUT if a team dominates a game for over 100 minutes out of 180 and still concedes 4 goals that could have easily been many more, it cannot be down to luck. I believe Alderweid absence has been a factor but the second goal by Dybala is absolutely absurd in that situation. Higuain found an incredible pass but the fact tact he could do that and find Dybala behind the line at 40 mt from goal IMO is simply not right, it should not have happened and it was a tactical mistake that was obviously compounded by the not exceptional individual quality of your CBs.
On the bright side I think you have in your hands a very easily improvable team, which could become a dominant force in EPL and Europe provided you hold on your best players that are so young can only improve over the next couple of years.
With a couple more strong CBs and more experience, ditching Verthongen that is out of his depth at this level, I think the team is incredible. At least that is my opinion
Our high-line is rarely undone, it's there not just to compress the play in front of us but it's also their to tempt teams to play over it/through it, and 9 times out of ten concede possession of the ball, it's a risk but has been a worthwhile one given the percentages (you, Leicester and Burnley i
think are the only teams that have scored as a direct result of it and even then Leicesters goal scored by Vardy was a worldie).
Vertonghen has been our best CB for the past two years, his performances have surpassed that of Alderwinred's. Although it's their partnership that really makes up the immovable rock when we are at full strength. Vertonghen's only real weakness is his 1v1 defending (it also happens to be Alderweireld's strength), but Vertonghen is rarely exposed 1v1 when we have a proper DM in front provided by either Dier or Wanyama. Dyabla's goal wasn't the fault of Vertonghen IMO, it was the fault of communication (collective) either Davies should have pushed up or Vertonghen and Trippier should have dropped. In addition to this Sanchez was sucked out of that line, which is important as we rely on him for his pace to cover the ball through or over the top. For me the biggest sin was Trippier for not running with Dyabla, even if he's behind him, he simply has to make his presence felt or make a decision to bring him down, anything other than stand still with his arm in the air but the line is broken, so concede that point.
You had THREE shots on goal and scored twice, whilst conceding 23 shots on your own goal. In the first game you were also out shot. On any other game you lose because we convert our chances as we have been for the past three seasons. That is luck in my book. Don't confuse this as Juve are shit, nothing can be further from the truth. You are an elite football team, a team that I want us to aspire to. You've some amazing individual players. There is nothing wrong in saying you were lucky, it's not meant to be a slur. I want us to have this luck all the great teams have this luck, they always stay in the game and often turn a game in their favour.
We got to this discussion if I remember correctly by you saying we should have shut-up shop and dug in and not play a high-line, i.e like you did. I'm responding and remain totally unrepentant, even in light of the result, and how the goal was conceded that had we have done that and invited you on to us you would have scored more as the defensive personnel available to us that night would not have kept you out and I'm as certain as I can possibly be you would have scored as a direct result of us employing this tactic (we can do this to great effect as we proved when playing BVB, when they were good and unbeaten I might add but we have the players available to allow us to do this). The other side of this coin is we got behind you numerous times in both games whilst you adopted this strategy and I've seen better more solid defending from Palace, Burnley, WBA, Chelsea, Swansea to name but a few but they have all restricted us to far lower percentage opportunities than those you did, to put it bluntly they defended better than you did against us, those teams limiting us to scraps. Given the opportunities we created against you I am desperately disappointed we didn't put the game out of reach from you.
You look to a missed penalty against us as a reason for you to put the game out of our reach, whilst I look to Kane's header 5yrds out and also wish the lino spotted the offside on Higuien's goal from the free-kick. All semantics and if's and but's. You won we didn't.