Evening all! It's only Tottenham Hotspur v Ajax Amsterdam in the semi-final, first leg, of the Champions League!

BT are showing a Pochettino interview. He agrees that the City second leg was rrrridiculous, and that the fans had been waiting for it a long time.

Who could've predicted that? This game never ceases to amaze us.

The other thing Spurs can do is look for Alli at the back post, and try and put him up against the full-backs. Otherwise, I fancy it'll be Moura on the break and not loads else.

However, if Eriksen has a good delivery day and Llorente reads him, there's joy to be had for Spurs.

Looking at these teams, I really do fancy Ajax. I think they've got too much in midfield, and Spurs don't have the good enough athletes for a fast, physical game. They've got enough to nick a couple of goals, but Ajax have the players to play them off the pitch.

We see some tape of De Ligt, who Ferdinand loves, citing his temperament. He really is an absolute star - he's 16 here.

Glenn Holdde just said that at Ajax, they keep coaching you when you're in the first team in a way they don't do elsewhere, then Rio Ferdinand talked about an interview with Christian Eriksen who said that at Ajax, they taught him how to run properly.

Spurs do, at least, have Sissoko back - and what a sentence that is to type. He's on the bench and will, I imagine, have a key role of play in the second leg.

A previous Ajax semi...

And then, of course, there's De Ligt and De Jong. For all we read and hear about Ajax's coaching, system and structure. the main reason they're here is that they've got two early-maturing, generational stars playing together. The boxer Nigel Benn once wrote of a coach who claimed to make him that, if it was true, why didn't he make more of him? Which is to say that you can encourage and develop talent, but you can't create it.

As for Ajax, they do what they do. 4-3-3, with Tadic as the spearhead. Amazingly, he's got 33 goals and 17 assists this season - good bit of business by Mark Hughes, that - but Daley Blind was just as important a signing. Good on the ball, good in the tackle and a fine reader of the game, Manchester United were silly to let him go and he's done a fantastic job of proving them wrong. Elsewhere, I've thought Hakim Ziyech the best player outside the top divisions for a while, Nicolas Tagliafico is an excellent left-back, and Donny van de Beek has all the attributes to become a star.

Needs must I guess, but I'm a little surprised Spurs have done it this way. I thought they'd go with the three centre-backs, but also thought they'd play an extra midfielder to avoid getting passed around, then two strikers through the middle. Perhaps they still will. But they'll have to go some to win this tie without Kane and Son.

So what does it all mean? Spurs are playing three centre-backs - Davinson Sanchez plays against his former club, joining Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen. In front of them, Uefa, who are invariably correct in such matters, have a midfield four, with the full-backs on the wide and Eriksen and Wanyama in midfield; in front of them, Moura and Alli are either side of Llorente.

Let's have some teams, then.

This fixture is an absolute jazzer: two young, attacking teams who don't wait to be asked, and who prove that you don't need to spend ludicrous sums of money to reach this stage. I cannot wait to make its acquaintance.