A Needed Walk in the Park

Dead rubber or not, makeshift lineup or not, Spurs needed this. A comfortable victory where they alternated between occasional brilliant play, sloppy or indifferent periods, and then considerable stretches where they toyed with APOEL as if they simply wanted to prove they could play keepaway in classic tiki-taka form. The result was pretty much preordained, and but for the contretemps over the nick to Danny Rose’s forehead or eye, nobody seemed any worse for the effort.

Fernando Llorente was my MOTM because in two brief first half moments he showed the Wembley crowd and, more importantly, his teammates just what a back to goal, holding striker is. Winks found Aurier who delivered a pitch-perfect cross into the box, where in one deft touch L...