Look, if Big Ange Postecoglou can stay the course after a draw, win and loss in Spurs’ opening three matches, so can we. Speaking to the assembled media after Tottenham Hotspur’s frustrating 2-1 loss to Newcastle at St. James’ Park, a place at which Spurs haven’t won since 2021, Postecoglou remained bullish on Spurs’ chances this season, but noted that Tottenham haven’t gotten the “rewards” they’ve tried to earn with their offensively-minded play.
“Yeah, obviously [wondering how Spurs didn’t get a result]. Very similar, I guess to our first away game when we controlled it for the most part, nullified most of the threats that Newcastle have. It’s obviously a difficult opponent here at home. The crowd create a pretty strong atmosphere for the home side, little things go their way but I thought for the most part we handled that really well.
“Then we gained the ascendancy in the game and we just needed to kill it off and we didn’t and a disappointing second goal. I thought we switched off a little bit but the game should have been well over by then. So, another sore one unfortunately where we haven’t got the rewards for our play, but ultimately it’s three strong performances from the first three games. The results don’t reflect it in that way.
“Potentially [we missed Solanke and Richarlison] but I still think even outside of that we just had some really good opportunities, a little bit more composure. Fair play to Pope, I thought he had an outstanding game. But I thought we could have tested him a few more times with just some better decision-making. It’s not just the opportunities we did create. I thought there was another probably six to 10 moments where we could have created even more opportunities. That’s been a constant theme for us that we’re trying to break through.”
Postecoglou noted that Tottenham were frustrated a bit by Eddie Howe’s decision to play bunker-and-counter defense against them on Sunday, but also noted that Tottenham did a decent job of getting into the box despite a number of long shots.
“When an opposition defence stays deep, it’s pretty hard to get in there. There are 10 bodies in there at times. Apart from Isak, everyone else is in there. But yeah, we worked our way into that area pretty well, but there were other times when we got even closer to goal in the box and obviously, like I said, we just lacked a little bit of composure, sometimes our positioning was off where we should have been with work and we let them off the hook.”
Postecoglou was also asked about the decision to shuffle the lineup at halftime, bringing in Brennan Johnson for Pape Matar Sarr and moving Dejan Kulusevski into the midfield. That substitution was the catalyst for Tottenham’s 20-minute spell of dominance at the start of the second half, though Spurs were unable to put the ball past Newcastle keeper Nick Pope. Ange explained he wanted to double down on the wide threat with Brennan, but he was also concerned about Sarr potentially picking up a second yellow card.
“[I made the call] only because Pape had been booked and like part of his game, he just really gets stuck into the opposition, and on the flip side, Lloyd Kelly had been booked as well. So I just thought, with Brennan coming on and running at them I just felt we run over the top of them in the second half.
“I got that sense just before half-time and I thought if we can get the ball to our wide players we can cause them some problems and and it did. It worked out that way, but we simply just didn’t take advantage of it.”
Tottenham almost certainly deserved more than what they got on Sunday, but that’s part of football. Now they take a breather for the international break before returning to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for the first North London Derby of the season against Arsenal. As for us fans, Spurs have given us a lot to chew over during the next two weeks, as evident by the, uh, vibrant discussion both here and on social media in the aftermath of the match.
