A look ahead to their huge match.
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00:00James, let's start by looking at the AZ Alkmaar fixture. Obviously, first leg, loss away from
00:07home, spurs in that game. Phil did a fairly strong side, knowing that the fact it's sort
00:13of the last chance, the last thing to play for this season for Ange Postekoglu and his
00:19side coming out of the cup competitions in the same week would have hurt as well. I mean,
00:24the league form hasn't been great, not much great to talk about this season. This Alkmaar
00:30game was massive. Let's start with the first leg. What did you think from that game? Because
00:34I mean, there's a few clips circling around of the more experienced players who you've
00:39mentioned throughout the season haven't been great. They were trying set-piece tactics,
00:43etc. And it wasn't coming off at all for them. I mean, it looks really, really tough to digest
00:50as Spurs fans must have felt so disappointed and really frustrated. But I'm guessing that's
00:56a feeling that you've had sort of throughout the whole campaign.
01:01Yeah, it kind of sums up the season, doesn't it? I mean, you know, we'd had eight days
01:05break. We fielded a very, very strong side for the first game there. And we just didn't
01:12turn up, did we? Simple as that. And that seems to be an epitome of Tottenham, to be
01:17honest with you. In the biggest moments, in the biggest games, we often go missing. And
01:22a lot of the key players went missing. I mean, looking at the set-piece debacle with Maddison
01:29and Song, where they sort of rolled it back to each other, got it all wrong, confusion
01:33reigned and that kind of just summed everything up. We didn't have a shot on goal until the
01:3887th minute and even that was a cross-cum-shot from Wilson Odebere. We looked absolutely
01:43toothless, very, very nervy. The talk of the pitch has been a little bit bumpy and
01:49bobbly. But, I mean, come on, we're Premier League players, world-class players in many
01:54respects. We can't be looking at the pitch as a leveller. Credit to AZ. I thought they
01:59did play very, very well. They've been pretty strong at home, actually, in the Europe League
02:02this season. But I think from a Spurs point of view, it was just extremely disappointing.
02:06Biggest game of the season and we just didn't turn up. It's as simple as that. And it was
02:11a microcosm of the season in a nutshell. We conceded a shambolic own goal. He was
02:18unlucky, Lucas Bergwald. And the one thing that you will say about Bergwald is he didn't
02:22hide. He didn't let that affect his performance and he was still one of the better players
02:26on the night. And I think that just shows his character and testament to the work he's
02:30doing at Spurs and how his development's progressing because he's becoming a real mainstay and
02:34a star of that midfield. So, fair play to Bergwald. But the whole thing's just a mess
02:41at the moment. And I think, unfortunately for Ange now, he's running out of excuses.
02:46We've had mitigating circumstances around the injuries. But those injuries are now starting
02:51to clear up. Yes, one or two players are obviously finding the feet and they need time to get
02:55back to form and fitness. But he's got a good pot to pull from now. And I think there's
03:01a lot of question marks to be answered for the second leg.
03:05On that second leg, it's not common, it's not usual that a whole season can ride on
03:13the Europa League last-16 second leg at home. That sums it up as it is. The home form hasn't
03:21been great. What needs to change? What needs to be really different from that first leg
03:28and from the whole season to make sure Spurs are in the last eight? There's a lot of pressure
03:33off the pitch as well with the protests, etc. And then Ange's tenure, of course, as you
03:38mentioned there. So, I mean, is it a case of just put things aside for the one night,
03:43get the result and move on? What do you sort of see from this second leg? I mean, it's
03:47huge pressure surrounding this game.
03:50It's a cliche, but it's a cup final. It's the biggest game of the season. It's the only
03:54game of the season that's got anything left on it, to be honest. We're languishing in
03:58the Premier League. We're not going to go down now, but we're also probably not going
04:01to trouble the top half of the Premier League in current form with the fixtures that we've
04:06still got to play. So, it's all on this. Everything's got to go on this. It's only 1-0, luckily.
04:13Somehow it was only 1-0 on the first leg over in Holland. So, you'd still expect Spurs
04:19on the best form to progress and to blow AZ away. And what we need to do is come out with
04:25some intent, some belief, some intensity. Some of the big players need to show some
04:29character. We need to get bums off seats in terms of the crowd, really sort of set
04:33the tone early doors, really start strongly, start like a Premier League intensity should
04:38be played at. We need to get the press right. You need to get the team selection right as
04:43well, which I must say I've been questioning over the last few weeks. It's been some very,
04:47very strange selections, including the midfield line-up at Bournemouth on Sunday. It was a
04:53little bit strange that one, but we need to have every player in the team available, fit
04:58for firing and really dying for the cause, you might say. Everything's on this game,
05:03including the manager's future, in my opinion.