Post-Match Thoughts on PSG

In a series of videos uploaded to Tottenham Hotspur’s official club website, manager Mauricio Pochettino and starting players Christian Eriksen and Ben Davies gave their thoughts on last night’s 4-2 victory over PSG in Orlando.

After falling behind to PSG inside the first 6 minutes, Tottenham staged a dramatic come-back, which featured two wonder-goals, one penalty, a red card and a bizarre rebound goal for Eric Dier.

On the win, Mauricio Pochettino revealed his delight in not just the result, but the performance and the benefits the competitive fixture provided the squad. He said:

“It’s always important to win, but the result is less important for us, we’re trying to get fit. For us it was the first game and when you play a game against a team like PSG you recover that feeling of competition. In Summer this is always important. I am very satisfied about the performance.”

When asked what he was trying to achieve from participating in the International Champions Cup, Pochettino explained his desire to give game-time to the youngsters, yet at the same time, build up the fitness of the first team.

“First of all, is to try to provide the players with the fitness that they need to compete in good condition,” He added. “This is difficult because there’s a lot of change and you try to mix the senior players with the younger players to settle them. The younger players they need to get experience.”

And commenting on Eriksen’s wonder-strike that leveled the tie for Spurs in the 11th minute of play, Poch suggested that the team came ‘alive’ once Eriksen had netted.

“It’s a goalaso,” He said. “It was a great, great goal.

“Christian is doing well. I think it was very important, that goal, because in that moment we feel as though we are alive and yes we made a few mistakes and conceded a goal, but when you play this kind of game and the conditions are so difficult because it’s the first game for us.”

Welsh left-back Ben Davies and the White Hart Dane Christian Eriksen, who both played 90 minutes against PSG, were also asked what was going through their head in the moment Eriksen struck that shot. The goal-scorer stated simply:

“When I saw the space I thought – why not have a go? And when it left my foot I thought – that’s definitely going in.”

Whereas Davies added much more praise to the Danish play-maker, stating:

“I’m just begging him to shoot. The quality he’s got, we’re lucky enough to see it every day and lucky enough that he can do it on the pitch as well.”

Davies then went on to discuss the importance of playing all 90 minutes of the tie, suggesting that all these pre-season games are merely about getting match fit ahead of the new season.

“We have to come back relatively fit,” He added. “We can’t afford to have a Summer off doing nothing.”

“We both got through the game tonight, it was tough come the end of the last 15 (minutes), but overall it’s perfect for us, it’s good to get the minutes in our legs and it’ll only set us in good stead for the next three games.”

The full interviews, as well as further post-match content, can be found of Tottenham’s official club website.

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