Gent's Shirt Numbers For Tottenham Win Last Night Were A Total Mess

They may have pulled off an unlikely first leg win over Spurs in the Europa League last night but Belgian side Gent still had major issues and it relates to the shirt numbers that their XI were wearing.

The traditional 1-11 format that your Sunday League probably adopts has changed massively over the years as football has changed, but Gent took it to a new level last night in what was peak modern football.

That's because none of their players in the starting XI wore a single-digit number and there were no numbers under eleven, in fact the lowest squad number was worn by defender Stefan Mitrovic - who sported the No.13.

The goalkeeper Lovre Kalinić was wearing No.91, their three forwards were wearing numbers 27, 24 and 77 respectively and though it's not the worst thing in the world by any stretch of the imagination, it's just plain wrong.

You obviously don't judge players on the shirt number that they wear and they did field a weakened team but it's still not on. It irritates me greatly.

Here is their team in full for the win over Spurs last night, where their average squad number was 35.

Dodgy shirt numbers are becoming a regular occurrence in football.

Sheffield Wednesday fancied having a bit of a laugh this season with their shirt numbers, which included striker Steven Fletcher wearing No.5 and reserve goalkeeper Joe Wildsmith taking on the No.2. Disgraceful.

French duo Morgan Schneiderlin and Jordan Ayew have both committed true football crimes with their shirt number picks at Everton and Swansea respectively and now a whole team in Gent can be considered culprits.

Their poor selection of squad numbers didn't have any sort of effect on their performance though, with Jeremy Perbet slotting home the only goal of the game in the 59th minute and giving Gent a real chance of getting through to the last 16 going into the second leg at Wembley.

Losing to a team who are eighth in the Belgian league and have the worst set of shirt numbers known to man - what are you playing at Spurs?

(h/t Dream Team)

Topics: Spurs, Europa League

Josh Lawless

Josh is a sports journalist who specialises in football and wrestling. He has been published by Curzon Ashton FC, Late Tackle, Manchester City FC, The Mirror, Read Man City and Manchester Evening News. He provides coverage of professional wrestling and has interviewed some of the biggest names in the field - including the first UK interview with The Hardy Boyz after their return to WWE. He has never sported a pair of Lonsdale Slip-ons, contrary to reports.

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