Publications
Partners
Cape Town - Former Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Brad Friedel feels that the London club need to adapt their style to suit the larger Wembley pitch.
Spurs suffered defeat at the hands of Monaco at the spiritual home of English football in their Champions League opener on Wednesday and Friedel believes the larger playing surface played a big part in their defeat.
"It was a disappointing result," Friedel told talkSPORT.
"Coming off a really good result in the Premier League against Stoke, I thought the game here might have been different.
"Wembley is a much bigger pitch... and I'm sure that has something to do with it."
The former USA stopper is of the opinion that Spurs may need to move away from the pressing game that has been so successful for them at White Hart Lane.
"Mauricio likes to set out his teams to press... when you step onto a bigger field there's an extra five yards of space to cover.
"As well as that, Monaco sat back and exploited all that space behind the back-four - the size of the pitch must have made an impact.
The 45-year-old is confident that Spur's will be able to improve as the campaign progresses.
"I'm sure the more games Spurs get to play on it the better they'll be.
"Monaco controlled the game really well, they condensed the space really well in that middle third and when they won the ball they were able to break.
"That's something Tottenham are going to have to come to terms with.
"It's going to be a big learning experience for Spurs, and they're going to have to take it all on board, but Mauricio and his staff will know what to do and they'll make it right."
