Tottenham Hotspur’s journey in the UEFA Champions League continue’s after beating Inter Milan 1-0 at Wembley.
After a disappointing start to their Champions League campaign, Spurs have managed to keep the hope alive of qualifying for the final 16 in the competition, following a 1-0 win over the Italian side yesterday evening.
Mauricio Pochettino chose to start both Erik Lamela and Lucas Moura, ahead of Son and Eriksen – two players who played an instrumental part in the win over Chelsea at the weekend. Some fans on social media were hesitant with the changes to Pochettino’s winning side, however they remained positive that Spurs would get the result that they needed.
Spurs started the match strong, creative and pressed deep at the Inter defence, but they couldn’t seem to finish it off in the final third. Their biggest chance came in the first half, from the Spurs youngster Harry Winks, who smashed the cross bar from 20 yards with a superb curling effort. For the most part of the match Inter Milan’s defence remained solid and the hope in finding the goal that Tottenham desperately needed to stay in the competition seemed as though it was slipping away from their fingertips.
The Tottenham manager looked at making changes in the second half, bringing on Son Heung-Min and Christian Eriksen, in the bid to find the back of the net. Mauricio Pochettino’s decision making, once again, proved to be spot on when Eriksen came on and gave Spurs the winning 80th minute goal. It would be an understatement to say the least, that Moussa Sissoko’s creativity and determination helped immensely in the match winner and after his impact he made throughout the entire game, he was rightly named Man Of The Match.
In order to progress into the Champions League final 16, Tottenham will need to go to Barcelona and at least match Inter Milan’s result, who face PSV Eindhoven the same day on December 11th 2018.
Some critics and media believe that this will be all too much for Spurs to pull off, but the main man himself Mauricio Pochettino, believes that his boys have all it takes to achieve the unexpected and get a result at Barcelona. Speaking to BT Sport in an interview after the match, Pochettino said “All is possible. I never say it is mission impossible. In football all can happen, you need to believe.”
In the last four days Tottenham have had two tough and important games, both of which they have won and Spurs will now look ahead at striving forward at beating their other London rivals Arsenal, on Sunday in the North London Derby.
If the fans and the players have the same positive mentality and belief as their manager Mauricio, then they have every chance in succeeding!
– Samantha Ramm