Sherwood explains what people should be asking Conte about Spurs plan

Tim Sherwood has called Antonio Conte’s game plan into question after Tottenham Hotspur suffered another defeat due to a poor first-half showing against Liverpool in the Premier League on Sunday evening.

Spurs came into the big game against Liverpool off the back of two dramatic wins, against Bournemouth in the league and against Marseille in the Champions League.

Both those results saw Spurs fight back after going behind to snatch late victories away from home. It’s something that Spurs have done many times this season, gaining 10 points from losing positions already this campaign, second only in that department to Crystal Palace (Transfermarkt).

It was a similar story as Spurs hosted Liverpool at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Jurgen Klopp’s men came into the game having not won an away game in the league all season, but managed to break that curse at the expense of Antonio Conte’s side.

Two first-half goals from Mohamed Salah were enough to see Liverpool take all three points from North London, despite a rallying performance from Spurs in the second half.

Speaking to Optus Sport, former Spurs boss Tim Sherwood couldn’t hide his frustration with the club’s approach to game management.

He said: “I was encouraged by that second-half performance; (Dejan) Kulusevski coming back in is a massive plus. Why do we have to wait before the game is gone before you start having a go?

“Perhaps someone should ask Antonio Conte that, because you’ve got to trust this group of players.

“You saw in the second half, they’re good enough to compete toe-to-toe with the likes of Liverpool, but unfortunately the game was lost in the first half because they didn’t believe they could do that.”

Spurs Web Opinion

I really don’t know why we are consistently making life difficult for ourselves by letting teams dominate us in the first half. It’s worked in the past, but it’s such a risky approach to a game, and that risk did not pay off against Liverpool. We cannot keep coming back from one or two goals down, and it’s a tactic that is very quickly catching up with Conte’s men.

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