Champions League Semi Finals 30th April/1st May

Pep's Barca routinely played parked buses, that term was coined during that era

You guys are suffering from playing 4 competitions and ravaged by injuries.
You are mistaken. Every team that plays against us has to make the decision to try to engage us in a football game and risk conceding four, five or six goals or to play with a packed defence, hoping not to concede and maybe score on the break.

Most teams choose the packed defence. When we played Burnley at the weekend, they (the home team) played with a nine man defence and made no effort to engage us until the last ten minutes. Their only ambition was to stop us scoring.

Even. Barca couldn’t play great football every week against this.
 
It really annoys me that Jenas always calls Pochettino "Maurizio" like they are best friends. Jenas got kicked out of Spurs before Poch showed up, he probably wouldn't know who he was if they met.

Just stopping trying so hard, JJ.

He is fucking hopeless.

He actually said 1st half that when Llorente, running forward onto a ball in, missed the header, it was because it was behind him.
 
Pep has learned it, very quickly.

He's even learned to 'put it in the corner' due to the probability of fatigue causing late goals.
And it's paid off great. We've become great at swatting away parked buses like no other. We don't retain the ball as well as his Barcelona side but we have more direct and physical options in the team to deal with this and the general attrition. Which is necessary for the Premier League. A guy like De Bruyne would have been extremely out of place in his Barca side, and yet he's our most pivotal player here.

It shouldn't be forgotten that his Barcelona side were knocked out of the CL by two teams parking the bus. And his best Bayern side were knocked out by a team parking the bus. They had to deal with it but not on the frequency levels we did. (Lack of) Money factors and the head-to-head tiebreakers in Spain meant teams were generally more willing to attack.
 
It should, but I honestly don't think we would have the legs left to win this & the title.

The run we have just had, was heroic.

Agree we would have been knackered after Burnley, no Ferna, no De Bruyne it would have been high one impossible to match Ajax's energy levels.
 
Quite similar to the Dortmund game at Wembley. In the first half, it was quite evenly matched, with Dortmund looking technically sharper, but in the second half, Spurs'physical strength saw them overpower them. Ajax need to get a second wind.
 
It should, but I honestly don't think we would have the legs left to win this & the title.

The run we have just had, was heroic.
I think (hope) the 8 days rest will see us at our best-for longer periods-would have been tough to play this mid week
 

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