‘Football was outstanding’ – Postecoglou explains what he liked from Spurs defeat
Ange Postecoglou has insisted that even though he is disappointed to have lost a third-straight game, he was extremely pleased with his side’s performance against Aston Villa. Tottenham are down to their bare bones at the moment, with nearly an entire team worth of players currently out with injuries and suspensions. In fact, three players […]
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Ange Postecoglou has insisted that even though he is disappointed to have lost a third-straight game, he was extremely pleased with his side’s performance against Aston Villa.
Tottenham are down to their bare bones at the moment, with nearly an entire team worth of players currently out with injuries and suspensions.
In fact, three players were making their first Premier League starts of the season for the Lilywhites yesterday, but despite all the changes, the home side was quite dominant and created a bucket load of chances.
However, Spurs were not clinical enough in the final third and they were punished by Unai Emery’s side, who scored off a set-piece in the dying stages of the first half before Ollie Watkins netted the match-winner against the run of play just past the hour mark.
Things do not get any easier for Tottenham, who travel to the Etihad Stadium to take on the reigning Premier League champions next.
(Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Postecoglou saw improvements from Wolves defeat
When asked how Spurs get out of their current slump, Postecoglou told Fooball.London: “I think you separate it. I said during the week I wasn’t happy with way we played at Wolves, so that’s a different performance. Again, it’s not a game we couldn’t have got a result but it was not something I was pleased in terms of the progress we need to make.
“Today is different. I thought today we play that game again and we keep playing in that manner when we do get everyone back, we’re going to be a pretty good football side as we’ve already shown.
“We’ve just got to make sure the players stay focused on what’s important right now and you need to win games of football to keep yourself in the mix to be in a strong position come the end of the year, but right now we’re still building a side.
“What’s more important is the way forward has to be with what the end goal is in mind and today was about trying to play the football we want to play. If we fell short, we fell short but I didn’t think we fell short today. I thought it was just fine margins for us and not getting the rewards.”
Postecoglou remarked that while he was not happy with what he saw from his side at Molineux ahead of the international break, there were more positives than negatives from yesterday’s clash.
He added: “Yeah, look some of it but at the same time you need to treat each game in isolation. There’s some pretty obvious reasons why the Chelsea game turned around and against Wolves it was extra time, but I didn’t like the way we played the whole game. So, that’s a different analysis. Today, I think we were so dominant in the game and it was disappointing to concede a goal from set-piece.
“They obviously looked threatening from crosses. We had four full-backs out there so we didn’t really have the height, which we knew would be an issue for us today but you kind of take those calculated risks with the flipside of it being that some of our football was outstanding today.
“I mean some of the goals we could have scored would have ended up being showreels for us in the way we want to play our football, so for me, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives of the result.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Like Postecoglou, I feel more optimistic on the back of that game even though we lost. I was particularly pleased with the performances of Ben Davies and Giovani Lo Celso, who both showcased that they are competent replacements.
If Bentancur’s injury is not serious, there is no reason why we cannot turn our form around sooner rather than later even without the likes of Van de Ven and Maddison.
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