A twist of tale comes from the other side of London as Tottenham Hotspurs managed to do what their neighborly rival, Arsenal failed to do, which is advancing to the next stage of the Champions League.
Despite the confidence they have after getting a 1-0 victory in the first half, Spurs went on some scary 90 minutes at White Hart Lane as their opponent, Ac Milan, showed a very classy performance on the night.
Setting the team with the same formation that got them the shock win in Italy, Spurs were simply outplayed by the Milan’s midfield as they had to defend deep in order to stop the away team in getting the goal that could turn the tie. A surprisingly strong defensive play added with an extra luck pretty much becomes Harry Redknapp team’s weapon in picking up the 0-0 draw that they pretty much needed as chances from Robinho and Alexandre Pato could actually blown their chances in progressing to the next round.
Despite setting up a five man midfield, Redknapp was simply disjointed at the fact his team can not tak a strangle hold in the midfield for the most part of the game which simply forced them to play a long ball tactic using Peter Crouch’s height to create any sort of chances. Luckily for Spurs, the fact that Milan didn’t really had plenty alternative players available due to being cup tied and also injured, the Rossoneri can’t really change a lot of things when their attackers started to get frustrated after missing plenty good goal scoring chances.
In the end despite not being able to provide their usual fiery attacking play against Milan, Overall Spurs did enough to get through in the competition as all that matters in this stage is simply the final result. No one gonna counts how many missed chances you make, how dominating were you, but it’s the goal that counts, and the Lilywhites counter attack goal by Peter Crouch in the first half pretty much gave them the ticket despite the Rossoneri could call themselves were pretty unlucky of going of from the competition remembering the chances they wasted.
This result is surely an important morale boosting thing for Spurs as they are currently having problem in catching the Champions League spot for next season, a win against one of the Europe giant albeit it wasn’t convincing could gave them at least some enjoyment in the season. However, with tough schedule ahead, more worries might be arriving on Redknapp’s head as their if his players can’t manage their concentration well they might easily lost another chance of competing at the competition again, which pretty much turned their luck around after having one against Milan.