Looking at where it went wrong for Spurs this season as inconsistency and key injuries have hampered Ange Postecoglou’s side

National World - LocalTV

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.

Transcript

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.

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