Postecoglou blasts Werner for ‘unacceptable’ performance one day after claiming he wouldn’t publicly criticise a player
ANGE POSTECOGLOU launched a scathing attack on Timo Werner following his no-show against Rangers – just ONE DAY after promising not to publicly bash his players.
The Germany international was one of Tottenham’s senior players in their Europa League clash with the Scottish giants at Ibrox on Thursday night.
But the former Chelsea man failed to make any impact and was hooked at the half-time interval, with his performance prompting a furious reaction from his manager.
After the match, an irate Postecoglou said of Werner: “He wasn’t playing anywhere near the level he should.
“When you’ve got 18-year-olds [playing], it’s not acceptable to me and I said that to Timo. He’s a senior German international.
“The moment we’re in right now, it’s not like we’ve got many options.
“I need everyone to at least be going out there trying to give the best of themselves.
“His performance in the first half wasn’t acceptable.”
When asked how Werner took the hooking, Postecoglou said: “[I] don’t really know, it’s not really of great concern.
“We need everybody, including him, to be contributing.
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“Because we don’t have the depth to leave people out if they’re performing poorly.
“We need them to play their part, especially the senior guys.
“When I’m asking younger guys to do massive jobs, I expect a level of performance from some of the senior guys and today wasn’t that.”
Postecoglou’s dressing down of Werner came just ONE DAY after the Aussie said he wouldn’t slam his players in public.
He said: “A lot of what he said was good, [but] some of what he said wasn’t right and shouldn’t be done in the public.
“I also believe that these things – we deal with them within our sort of four walls.
“Because there are always issues that we need to deal with.
The same way I wouldn’t publicly criticise a player or anybody else, I don’t think that we should be doing that in the public sense.”
Postecoglou replaced Werner – who has only scored three goals and provided six assists in 33 appearances for the club – with Dejan Kulusevski.
And the Swede had the desired effect in the 75th minute, cancelling out Hamza Igamane’s strike and rescuing a point for the visitors.
Spurs will be back in action on Sunday afternoon, travelling to St Mary’s to take on Southampton.