Tue 07 March 2023, 19:00
Tottenham HotspurIt’s crunch time in the UEFA Champions League as we take on Italian giants Milan in the second leg of our Round of 16 tie, trailing 1-0 from the first leg at the San Siro. Ahead of Wednesday night’s huge encounter at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, we’ve tapped into the knowledge of European football expert Andy Brassell, a regular here at tottenhamhotspur.com and on the pages and podcasts of the likes of The Guardian, Football Ramble and talkSPORT.
Maignan and Ibra...
Andy: “It felt like Milan had stabilised after the first leg, three wins on the bounce, they started to defend better and switched to three at the back, which I think is a help as well - it definitely helps Theo Hernandez on that left-hand side, because he’s much more of a natural wing-back than an orthodox left-back. People will talk about Zlatan Ibrahimovic coming back, but Mike Maignan returning is the big one. He’s the guy who will succeed Hugo Lloris at international level (Hugo, France’s record cap, retired from international football after the World Cup) and is a terrific goalkeeper. They’ve missed him hugely (he was out for months due to a calf injury in October). Maignan coming back and playing the last two games is a big one. Having said that, they gave a rotten performance at Fiorentina at the weekend. It wasn’t just that they lost (2-1) but they were second best. So, that was a bit of a shock. The feeling in Italy was maybe they had an eye on this game. That’s interesting, because it’s such a battle for the top four in Serie A, Napoli will win the title (they’re 15 points clear of Inter in second) but it means at least one really good team who will miss the top four, and Milan don’t want it to be them, so they can’t take their eye off the ball - Lazio, Inter and Roma all won over the weekend.”
Leao and Theo...
Andy: “I guess the big thing for them is they missed Rafael Leao at Fiorentina on Saturday. If he plays, it’s a different story. The question then is if they’ve switched to three at the back, does that get the best out of Leao? I tend to think he’s at his best on the left side of a 4-4-2 and the combination between him and Theo Fernandez, which we saw a bit of in the first leg, is fantastic. They are both good at stretching the game and together, it means one can go outside and one inside. They are currently missing an authentic wing-back on the other side (Alexis Saelemakers, a winger, played there in the first leg) so we’ll have to see how that shapes up when it comes to the actual game. I guess the other thing people will be thinking is what they will get out of Ibrahimovic. The feeling in Italy is they gave him 25 minutes against Fiorentina so he could get himself nearer to fitness for this game. He’s unlikely to start against Spurs, but he could make a contribution at some point, which is pretty amazing at 41. He’s so talismanic for them and inching his way back to fitness.”
