The purists won’t be happy; the fans who have paid £40 for a ticket will be even less so. But the figures don’t lie and what the figures say is that Spurs’ manager Mauricio Pochettino would be better off fielding an even weaker side for the return leg against Dortmund than he had sent out for the first. Go the whole hog and give Toby Alderweireld, Kevin Wimmer and Christian Eriksen the night off along with the rest of the first team.
We all like to dream about European glory nights at White Hart Lane. The Spurs’ message boards are full of sentiments, such as “Get one early goal and then it’s game on.” But it’s not really. It was game over when Pochettino fielded a weakened team against one of the best sides in Europe for the first leg and was beaten 3-0.
To imagine that a full strength team would be able to overturn that deficit by scoring four goals without conceding is just fanciful. It just isn’t going to happen. So for the manager to reverse his decision of the previous week by playing Harry Kane and Mousa Dembele merely to appease any potential bad-feeling from the home support would be worse than inconsistent. It would be actively counter-productive.
Suppose, by some miracle, Spurs did manage to win the tie. Is that really in the best interests of the team? The biggest prize on offer this season is Champions League football next season. It’s the Champions League that will ensure the current squad stays intact during the summer transfer window. It’s the Champions League that will guarantee the big bucks TV money. It’s the Champions League which will attract the best players to Tottenham.
To ensure Champions League football next season, Spurs either have to win five more games in the Europa League or make sure they finish in the top four of the Premier League – the top three to avoid a qualifying tie . With just eight Premier League games to go and Spurs in second place, six points clear of Arsenal, the home competition looks much the better bet.
Why not both, some might say? The simple answer is that it’s too high a risk. An extra five games at this stage of the season makes a big difference. There’s been a great deal written about how Leicester have managed to defy the doom merchants to remain five points clear at the top of the table.
Obviously a lot of credit must go to their manager, Claudio Ranieri, who has turned a squad of quite ordinary footballers into something special. Yet little has been mentioned of the fact that Leicester have had nothing to distract them from the league since Spurs knocked them out of the FA Cup in the third round replay. As a result their players have looked consistently fresh for every game, which is more than can be said for Spurs, Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool, all of whom have struggled at times over the last month.
Much is also written of the importance of momentum. Winning begets winning. That may be true for a side during the long cold months during the middle of the season, but come the run-in, no team in second place in the Premier League table needs any further incentive to win games as the prize is firmly in sight.
What matters most is staying fit and fresh. A work load cut from 13 games to eight is a huge advantage during the last weeks of the season, as players will get a full week to recover between games. With massively important games against Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea coming up in the coming weeks, Spurs players need every minute of rest they can get.
So let the Europa League go. It was fun while it lasted, but enough is enough. Three points against Bournemouth on Sunday is worth far more beating Dortmund.
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