Tottenham Hotspur have started their Champions League campaign with a disappointing 2-2 draw against Olympiakos in Athens.
In some way, the scoreline flattered Tottenham who did not show up and were fortunate to have a two-goal lead.
Before the Greek side roared back with a goal from Daniel Podence just before half time and then Mathieu Valbuena scored a penalty to seal his team a good point.
After the game, Mauricio Pochettino blamed the result on his players and claimed that it was nothing to do with tactics, but I feel Poch got it badly wrong on this occasion.
His first mistake was leaving Danny Rose and Serge Aurier back in London.
Both played 90 minutes on Saturday, but Aurier, in particular, was excellent, and it seemed harsh to leave him behind.
The Argentine took Kyle Walker-Peters, but he opted to start Davinson Sanchez at right-back again.
You would think that after the disaster of the North London derby Sanchez would never play at right-back again.
Pochettino, though, oddly decided to play the Colombian at right-back again and the Olympiakos left-winger Georgios Masouras had a field day – as he consistently raced past the 23-year-old.
Sanchez was not at fault for any of the goals but was clearly uncomfortable and offered no attacking threat.
Aurier would have been a much better choice. On the other flank starting Ben Davies proved to be a mistake as well.
The Welshman has just returned from injury, and he struggled to deal with the pace and trickery of Podence losing him for Olympiakos’ first goal and consistently allowing players to find space between him and Jan Vertonghen.
Davies is a decent player, and this will most likely just be a one-off bad performance, but once again, it is strange that Rose was left at home.
The final decision that made little sense to me was to drop Heung-min Son to the bench.
The South Korean international was in sparkling form on Saturday, and his reward for this was to watch Christian Eriksen consistently give the ball away or Erik Lamela constantly make the wrong decision.
Without Son Tottenham lacked urgency and directness and when he was introduced from the bench at 2-2 the game swung back in Spurs’ favour.
Overall, then Pochettino made some odd choices, and Spurs suffered because of this yes they took a 2-0 lead, but the team selection was all wrong – he will have to be much smarter in the next game against Bayern Munich.