Ange Postecoglou says he is pushing for Europa League success after FA Cup exit

Following Tottenham Hotspur’s second cup defeat in the space of a week – this time in the FA Cup against Aston Villa – manager Ange Postecoglou has provided his thoughts on his team’s performance.

Tottenham Hotspur crash out of the FA Cup

Tottenham Hotspur have suffered yet another defeat, this time in the hands of Aston Villa in the fourth round of the FA Cup.

This latest defeat comes four days after the Lilywhites suffered a humiliating 4-0 loss during the midweek in their semi-final Carabao Cup tie against Liverpool.

Before the FA Cup tie, manager Ange Postecoglou promised improvement in his team’s performance, yet it took the north London club just one minute to go behind against Villa.

Ange Postecoglou’s assessment of Spurs FA Cup defeat to Aston Villa

The game eventually ended 2-1, and it could have been more, as both sides had the opportunity to score more on the day.

Heung-min Son missed a sitter at 1-0, while Antonin Kinsky made tons of saves to keep the scoreline respectable. Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou has now given his assessment of the Lilywhites performance.

Speaking to BBC One, he said: “Obviously disappointed we don’t progress. It wasn’t a great start, that’s the last thing you want, and we really struggled to get some control. Then we had an enormous chance at 1-0 we didn’t take to equalise.

“We got a better grip of the game but unfortunately fell short. When you go a goal down it gives the opposition momentum and confidence. You want to wrestle control early and we didn’t do that.

“We were still in the game [at half-time]. We just needed to hang in there. The second half was a lot more like ourselves. The second goal sort of made it a bit more difficult but I always felt we were a threat – unfortunately just not enough.

“We still scored, we had opportunities to create more chances. We were always still in the game but conceding an early goal and a second makes it hard.”

Ange Postecoglou remains hopeful in Spurs Europa League chances

This latest defeat means that the N17 club’s chances of securing a trophy in Ange Postecoglou’s second season have now dropped significantly, as Spurs have the Europa League as their only shot at silverware.

The Tottenham boss continued: “Nothing really changes. We have a couple of weeks now where we don’t have midweek games.

“This group has done an unbelievable job for two and a half months. I can’t praise them enough, playing twice a week since November. They’ll get the chance to reset now and finish the season strong.

“Europe is still very important to us, we’re still in a great spot there, and we’ll hope to get some players back over the next two weeks.

“We’ll get players back which will help, we had 11 first-team players out today. Take that out of any team for one game and they would struggle – we’ve been doing that for two and a half months.

“The players are going out there and giving everything they can. It would be a lot better if they had some help.”

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