“Spurs shouldn’t be there” – Souness on the Champions League final

Unfortunately for Souness, they did qualify for it.

Graeme Souness doesn't believe that Champions League finalists Tottenham Hotspur deserve to be playing in the Champions League final. Mauricio Pochettino's side qualified for the final in Madrid after defeating Ajax in the semi-finals, Manchester City in the quarter-finals and Borussia Dortmund in the second round. This run of results, and the fact that the Champions League is a competition in which progression is awarded to those that win ties against their opponents, means that most people believe that Spurs deserve to be there because they got there. Souness doesn't think this way though, and he said as much days ahead of their tie against Liverpool in Madrid.

"Spurs shouldn’t be there," Souness said. "You say to anyone at the start of the season a team is going to lose 19 games in all competitions, and yet they’ll find themselves in the final of Champions League, you’d say you are talking nonsense. "But they’ve somehow got themselves there, and I think they are fortunate to be there. "I think another way to look at it, I’m looking at it through the eyes mostly, of a Liverpool supporter, and I’d pose a question, if you were picking a team from the 22 players that were going to start the game, how many Spurs players would be in that 11? "I’m thinking as we’re standing here, Eriksen possibly in midfield, and Harry Kane, then you’ve got nine Liverpool players. But the minute you try and attach any logic to a game of football, you come unstuck."

Spurs are the underdogs heading into the match with Jurgen Klopp's side at the Wanda Metropolitano, in the first all-English Champions League final since Manchester United defeated Chelsea in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium in 2008.