You weren't missing Sissoko today - he came on and as you say, made an impact (albeit against a side who had well and truly taken their foot off the gas).
I don't think I've even barely exaggerated anything you've said, let alone massively. You totally dismissed my opinion and said you stopped reading after I suggested the two sides were of similar quality. That suggests a bigger gulf than just missing Kane and Son.
They were obviously missed tonight and had they been fit, Ajax would've been forced to play more than 25 minutes of ball. I still think they'd have had the beating of you though and I thought that then.
I never had an issue with you thinking Spurs were the better team, only with your inflated opinion of how much obviously superior you thought you were in typical Spurs fashion.
He came on after Ajax got the goal, immediately after which we began to match them. You think Ajax deliberately took their foot off the gas 30 minutes in to a tie rather than chasing more away goals and attempting to put the tie to bed?
We started the game without our two best attackers and without our two best midfielders (Sissoko, Winks) so were completely overrun. As soon as I saw Wanyama's name on the teamsheet I knew we would be in for a tough night, he's simply not up to any game of this magnitude any longer. Sissoko coming in helped to balance that because he actually added some legs and support, but we still had to cope with a passenger in midfield all game.
If we had both Kane's ability to hold up the ball/being a threat in the box and Son's running in behind, from an attacking standpoint it would have been an unrecognisable Spurs' team tonight. Two world class players can make a huge difference, especially when they're coming in for players who are a massive drop in terms of ability. Liverpool are one of the best teams in Europe right now, but take Salah & Mane out of the starting XI and replace them with Origi and Shaqiri and they would look half the team.
Again, I've already admitted to underestimating Ajax, I thought their performance vs Madrid wasn't something they would repeat. I've admitted that several times over in different threads, they're the real deal and some of their players have serious quality. Tonight they were fearless, energetic and technically superb in the first half, but then struggled when we stopped completely playing in to their hands, but were able to comfortably keep us at bay because we simply didn't have the tools to hurt them with our absences.
If our last 3 CL games have shown anything it's that a quality forward can make the world of difference. We were under fire in the 2nd half from City when Son scored out of nowhere, and then he got 2 quality goals at the Etihad, again when we were up against it. We badly lacked a forward that put any kind of fear in the opposition tonight, Ajax were comfortable because our movement in the box was horrendous. Llorente gets credit for holding the ball up but he offered no decent runs in to the box.
Anyway, we'll see about the second leg. The biggest problem for us right now is that we rely on too many players who are constantly picking up injuries, very few of our stars have not had lengthy periods on the sideline. It feels like we've been in a state of injury crisis for basically the entire season.