Postecoglou defends team selection against Tottenham
Tottenham Hotspur were defeated for the 10th time in the Premier League this season in only 20 outings after Newcastle United came back from a goal down to earn a 2-1 win in north London on Saturday. In doing so, the Magpies completed the double over Spurs having already beaten them in the reverse fixture at the St. James’ Park.
That’s not all, however, as Spurs could be as low as 15th in the league standings by the end of the matchday. Another unsatisfactory result has jeopardised Ange Postecoglou’s continuity as the manager with the exclusions of James Maddison, Son Heung-min and Yves Bissouma from the starting eleven proving to be poor decisions on the Australian’s part.
He was quizzed by the media regarding those selection calls, to which Football London quoted him replying the following.
Just a combination of I thought we were going to need some running power and energy early on and as the game went on we would be able to use the experience of the guys who came on and I thought it worked well. We finished really strong. We started the game really well and the only thing that stopped us in our tracks was not football. That was the whole idea about it. Guys like Sonny, Biss and Maddison to a lesser extent, they have played a lot of football and having them fresh helps them mentally as much as physically and I thought all three when they came on made a real difference for us.
Son’s exclusion was perhaps the only one that was justifiable as the South Korean has been enduring a bad run of form in recent weeks. He has failed to turn up his intensity when it matters most. Son has struggled with fitness problems too, so perhaps that played on Big Ange’s mind although in fairness, his replacement, Timo Werner did not do much better either.
James Maddison and Yves Bissouma have been among the team’s better players with the former Leicester City midfielder also scoring a handful of goals in recent fixtures. While it was understandable that the players may have been physically overrun, a game against Newcastle, one of the league’s most in-form sides, should not have been chosen to rest them.
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A number of fingers can be pointed at the board for not supporting the manager with the adequate quality and quantity of players, although with the amount of subpar results this season, Postecoglou is losing his loyalists as well.
