Tottenham Hotspur crashed out of the Champions League knockout stages as Antonio Conte’s poor record in Europe continued on Wednesday evening.
The north Londoners were held to a 0-0 draw by defending Serie A champions AC Milan, meaning they failed to overturn a one-goal deficit from the first leg and are now left with very little to play for in 2022/23.
Spurs and Conte were handed more misery when Cristian Romero reverted back to his old tricks by receiving a second yellow card in the 77th minute, to all but thwart their chances of getting a positive result.
The Italian hardly helped himself either, opting to bring on inconsistent centre-back Davinson Sanchez to bafflingly replace the Lilywhites’ main creator on the night, Dejan Kulusevski, instead of Arnaut Danjuma during the final stages of the game.
And similarly, it’s the same culprits that have let Tottenham down for many, many years…
How did Ben Davies perform vs AC Milan?
One of those guilty of just that is long-serving and versatile defender Ben Davies, who this time was deployed in a back three in the absence of the suspended Eric Dier.
On the face of it, a clean sheet looks good but truthfully, Milan rarely threatened throughout the 90 minutes, with the visiting side not even managing one corner whilst they only mustered up three shots on target too.
As per Alasdair Gold’s post-match ratings column, the Wales international was one of the poorer players on the pitch, earning a 4/10 for his disappointing efforts and the reliable football.london reporter even claimed that he got ‘sloppier in his play as the match wore on’ – even Clement Lenglet was graded better.
However, reporter Marcelo Courrege was a little more scathing in his assessment, suggesting that Davies is “a Championship player,” which would echo the thoughts of Darren Ambrose, who told talkSPORT: “The defence of Dier, Davies and Sanchez. It’s not good enough for a top-four side.”
The 29-year-old, who earns a reported £80k-per-week at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, has certainly been one of Conte’s poorer players this campaign, particularly being exposed at the very highest level such as in the Champions League, where he has earned a WhoScored rating of just 6.39.
This makes him the worst Spurs player to have started three or more matches in the competition and only adds weight to the argument that he’s just not good enough for this standard of football.
Despite Sofascore handing him a 7.1 rating for his efforts against Milan on Wednesday, the Welshman only won 50% of his duels and managed just the solitary tackle.
He was also dribbled past on one occasion, which is disappointing considering he was up against an old veteran in Olivier Giroud. Davies even failed to provide an accurate cross or more than one successful long ball throughout the time he was on the pitch.
Given the Rossoneri’s own domestic struggles this campaign, Spurs would have seen this as a major opportunity to advance in such a prestigious competition but once again, players like Davies have shown themselves to not be up to the standard required, subsequently letting the club down on yet another occassion.
AND in other news, Paratici eyeing Spurs swoop for “complete” £20m “machine man”, imagine him and Kane…