Tottenham Hotspur’s season started brightly under Ange Postecoglou, but things have quickly headed down hill. Key injuries and poor summer investments have exposed the squad’s lack of depth, with the defensive setup becoming a major issue.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Yes, and obviously Ange Postekoglou has had some memorable moments, obviously coming in
00:08and really being quite stubborn and sticking to his way of playing as well. When he first
00:15came in, that sort of style of play that he was really stubborn and sticking to was really
00:21praised well by pundits and players and fans. What sort of went wrong? What was the sort
00:27of downslide for Ange Postekoglou and his sort of tactical, now syntactical ideas in
00:32the Premier League? Because it was sort of a new lease of life when he first came in
00:36and slowly things have really, really took a downward spiral.
00:40Well, Spurs at their best are a pressing team. We're aggressive, we press high. So all the
00:44injuries, you can take all of that into account. Fatigue is a huge problem. You can see some
00:49of the players really, really running on fumes. Some of the senior players have gone off the
00:53boil as well, with the likes of Son. He had a great chance against Everton, just took
00:59too long to pull the trigger for the first one, one-on-one, let Tafs Kostya get a tackle
01:04in. And then a couple of minutes later, he had one that he just didn't catch him from
01:07almost the penalty spot. He's been a world-class finisher over his career and you'd really
01:11expect him to score. So there's some senior players off the boil, letting him down in
01:16terms of Postekoglou, whatever you want to call it. The injuries, we could talk all day
01:21about the injuries and the failures in the transfer market. Ultimately, we didn't have
01:26a deep enough squad to go into the season. I've mentioned it before, but we went into
01:30the season with one fit left back, didn't address that area. The central defensive line
01:34absolutely threadbare. And then in terms of midfield, we lack a quality number six. When
01:40the system works and plan A works, we're a force to be reckoned with, but that has to
01:44be with 1-11 in terms of our best players. We've pretty much lost 1-11. I think we had
01:49four senior starters yesterday who'd really make the best 11. So there are mitigating
01:54factors, but ultimately, the responsibility rests with one, the players who are letting
01:59him down. And we've spoken about senior players letting Postekoglou down. Again yesterday,
02:04Archie Gray, Lucas Bergwald, Jed Spence were the three best players on the pitch. Mikey
02:08Moore comes off the bench, provides an assist. Richarlison comes on as well, not 100% fit,
02:14but looked fairly sharp. But it's some of the other players, the senior, senior players
02:19that we really, really need to be looking at. But it's just going awfully wrong at the
02:24moment. And as I say, we need to start acting decisively in the coming days. Otherwise,
02:30the season's slow. Well, it's not slowly, it's rapidly unravelling now. And we lose
02:36at Hoffenheim, the Europa League, and then qualification suddenly becomes a problem in
02:40that competition. We've got, you know, hell of a battle coming at Anfield for a semi-final
02:44in a couple of weeks' time. You know, we need either players back or players through the
02:48door and some, you know, real sort of certainty around what's going to happen with the manager.
02:54After my chat with Spurs follower James, I wanted to see where Ange Postekoglou puts
02:59the current blame and how he thinks things can be turned around ahead of the remainder
03:04of the season.
03:06It wasn't great, the first half. I guess the majority of that's down to me, obviously.
03:12Change of team, change of structure. You know, we obviously had a couple of setbacks in terms
03:19of player availability. And, yeah, we struggled to sort of get control of the game. And, you
03:26know, I allowed Everton to capitalise on that. And, you know, we obviously had half-time
03:33at a mountain to climb. Fair play to the players, again. You know, they keep going
03:38to the end and ultimately just fell short. Only had 11 fit players, so it was a matter
03:44of trying to find a way to fit the ones we have fit into a structure. And, like I said,
03:53the players tried hard enough but it didn't work. It's a pretty extreme situation. You
03:58know, we've lost three players, significant players, since the last game. And we've already
04:02got sort of seven or eight out. And, you know, obviously we lost Dom really late just
04:07out of training, suddenly knocking us. It's just the run we're on at the moment, the situation
04:13we're in. At some point that will change. We'll get some players back. But right now
04:21it's just the situation we've dealt with and the responsibility lies squarely with me to
04:28try and get us out of it.