Mauricio Pochettino has praised Tottenham for matching Chelsea man-for-man in their FA Cup semi-final clash at Wembley despite Antonio Conte’s superior bench.
The Italian made the surprise move to drop top scorer Diego Costa and the favourite for this season’s player of the year award, Eden Hazard, from his starting line-up, with former Arsenal and Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fabregas also named among the substitutes.
Pochettino made some bold changes of his own to send South Korean forward Heung-min Son out to play as a left wing-back while Kieran Trippier manned the right side of the pitch in place of regular starter Kyle Walker.
But his tactical gambit did not pay off as Son gave away a penalty in the first half that was scored by Hazard’s replacement for Chelsea, Brazilian winger Willian.
The Blues would go on to win the match 4-2 in spite of two well-taken goals by Harry Kane and Dele Alli, with Christian Eriksen laying the assists on for both players.
Conte sent all three of his rested former title-winners on in the second half to finish Spurs off.
In his post-match press conference, Pochettino acknowledged the role played his opposite number’s use of the substitutes bench.
“I explained before the game that you never know the reason why the manager took the decision,” he said. “You will see after that, Hazard had some impact, he scored the third goal.
“To have another player like Costa on the bench always can give you other alternatives in the game. You see the three changes they make, Fabregas, Costa, Hazard, it’s not so bad!”
Spurs have been hit by injury this season with Pochettino unable to call upon the services of Erik Lamela, while his first- choice left-back Danny Rose was ruled out of the match against Chelsea.
Despite this, Tottenham were the better side for much of the first 60 minutes of football as the north Londoners sought to take the game to their opponents to pin them inside their own half.
“I feel proud because we played very well with a lot of personality and character against a team that played well,” said
Pochettino. “We forced them to play very deeply on the counter attack, but that is football too.
“It’s different from how we try to play. We must congratulate them and now we must try to fight in the Premier League. That is our objective.”
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