review- tottenham vs milan second leg

sandro competing for the ball with pato

Spurs defended excellently in a game  in which they surprisingly failed to score but deserved to go through after a well fought battle!
The fact that they failed to score is such a surprise because before this fixture they had scored 3 goals in all of their previous home games in europe.Still it was a fairly interesting game with Milan having the better of the chances but failing to put away any of them due to some excellent defending from the english side which included a dramatic goal line clearance from william gallas!
There was only 1 change from the tottenham team that played in the first leg with modric coming back in for palacios. A 4-4-1-1 formation was employed with gomes in goal. Corluka, gallas, dawson(*captain*) and essou-ekotto in defence. The pacey lennon, sandro, modric and pienaar made up the midfield and rafa v.der.vaart played in the hole behind peter crouch. Gareth bale had recovered from his back injury in time for this fixture but could only find a place on the bench with redknapp taking no chances on his star player!
Allegri played a pretty attacking side employing his favored 4-1-2-1-2 with abbiati in goal. Abate, nesta, thiago silva and jankulosvki in defence. Seedorf(*captain*) played deep with boateng and flamini playing ahead of him and robinho played directly behind ibra and pato!
Milan dominated the game with 63% overall possession which, considering the match was at white heart lane and how excellent tottenham have been there this season, was probably the biggest shock of the match. It basically meant that spurs came here to defend and only rarely created a chance or two. V.der.vaart had a few cracks at goal from long range and came close with a well struck free kick but his effort was just over the bar. Abbiati did look to have it covered though if it had dipped at the last instant!
The absence of a holding mid in the shape of palacios in the spurs midfield meant they werent strong enough in that part of the pitch and were regularly being overcrowded. Boateng in particular was finding lots of space and regular passes were being fed to ibra and pato through him. Ibra came the close with a very well struck freekick that was heading for the top corner but gomes pulled off a good save to keep it out.
It was robinho who had the best chance of the first half to open the scoring when pato, after rounding an on-rushing gomes, squared the ball to him but he just mistimed his kick a little and it hit assou-ekotto. The ball rebounded off the left back and wouldv ended up in the back of the net if not for a goal-line clearance from william gallas!
Milan created a few more chances and bossed the midfield area but failed to score in what was an eventful first half
SECOND HALF
Tottenham played much deeper in the second half with at times all their players back defending! This of course meant that milan were having even more possession in midfield though it wasn leading to much. One bright point from tottenhams p.o.v was that aaron lennon was much better in the second 45 and constantly used his pace to good use against jankulovski!
They did of course have a big target man in the box in the form of peter crouch to aim the crosses towards but the former liverpool wasn good enough with most of his headers and at times got caught up in b/w putting in to the goal or squaring it to van der vaart.
A lift was given to the home supporters though when gareth bale came on in th 66th min for v.d.vaart who had had had a disappoint game. Bale however wasn used in the role many expected and slotted back in as an extra lb clearly signalling spurs' intent to just see the game out without conceding!
Pato and Robinho both came very close to scoring for the away side but in the end it just wasnt to be and the final whistle was accompanied by a frenzy of cheering from the spurs' fans! An amazing overall win over one the european giants and an amazing achievement to have gotten to the semis on the first time of asking!