Crouch baffled by Conte tactic as he explains who ‘needs a pay rise’ at Spurs

Peter Crouch reckons Spurs coach Gianni Vio ‘needs a pay rise’ after the north Londoners topped Group D with a 2-1 win over Marseille on Tuesday.

Chancel Mbemba gave the Ligue 1 side the lead at half-time but were pegged back when Clement Leglet headed in from Ivan Perisic’s free-kick on the hour.

Tottenham came under late pressure as they held out for the draw that would take them into the knockout stage, but instead scored the late winner themselves to top the group as Harry Kane picked out Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, who fired expertly into the far corner.

It was another less than convincing display from Antonio Conte’s side and Crouch believes Vio, who was recruited in the summer to run the rule over set pieces, should be given a pay bump.

“Whoever this set-piece coach is needs a pay rise because you can see how important they are to them,” said Crouch, who then revealed how confused he was by Conte’s negative tactics.

“I just don’t understand why they don’t start on the front foot,” he added. “It gives teams impetus, it gives them hope and belief. When you start like that, especially away from home, you’re giving the impetus to the other team.

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“I don’t understand why you would retreat and invite pressure on, that gives the other team a hell of a lot of confidence to string passes together. There’s a potential for [a lack of trust] but defensively are they as strong? He might think that he needs to get bodies behind the ball.

“Liverpool might leave two-vs-two, Man City might leave it two-vs-two because they trust their defenders. Maybe there’s a little bit of that, but I still think there’s enough quality on that pitch to be more expansive, to go out and really take it to teams in the first half and do what they did tonight for the full 90 minutes.”