Tottenham need “more maturity” after disappointing Champions League draw, says Harry Kane

Mauricio Pochettino isn’t the only person at Tottenham Hotspur who is frustrated with Spurs’ 2-2 draw at Olympiacos in the Champions League on Wednesday — Harry Kane has also had it. Tottenham’s star striker and vice captain said he sympathized with Pochettino’s exasperated comments to the press after last night’s match in Athens, saying Spurs have to get over it and stop making dumb mistakes.

“That’s the hard part to get your head around because we’re not young any more, we’re not inexperienced. We’ve played in a big games for club and country.

“I can see why the manager is frustrated because he’s been here for six years now and we’re still making similar mistakes to the ones we were in his first year. We’ve got to find a way to get around it, improve and get better. That’s all we can try to do.”

In some ways, it’s good to see Tottenham’s players like Kane get as angry and frustrated about bad performances as we fans are. We assume that they feel this way, but it doesn’t always get translated via comments to the press like this. Kane in particular noted that Spurs at times seem to regress to old habits from years ago, even after proving their critics wrong by making the Champions League final last June.

“It’s hard. We’ve been here before. It’s disappointing because we started last year’s campaign disappointingly, and we know it takes a lot of hard work and energy to get back to the top of the group. We obviously play Bayern, a very tough opponent, next.
“That’s the frustrating part. 2-0 up if we see it through to half-time it’s probably a different game. That’s something we’ve got to work on and improve on.

“I don’t doubt the mentality of the team. We’ve come through a lot in the last few years and last year reaching the Champions League final after being down and out in the group. A bit more maturity in those situations will help.

“We’re still backing ourselves to win enough games and get through the group but obviously it makes the game in a couple of weeks important to win to get ourselves in a better position.”

Frustrating performances can be catalysts for positive change, and hopefully that’s the case here. Really, Kane is also the perfect person to deliver this kind of message — Hugo Lloris may be club captain, but Harry is the heart and soul of the team, and I’m willing to bet nobody in the senior side loves the club as much as he does.

Spurs will face arguably their second most difficult match of the group stages in their next Champions League match when they host Bayern Munich on October 1. Hopefully this is a team that will decide that enough’s enough when it comes to bad matches in Europe.