Ange Postecoglou ‘shattered’ after exhausted Tottenham lost again, claims ‘we deserved to win’

LONDON — Ange Postecoglou has adapted. His idealistic vision of how Tottenham should play football has been tempered in recent matches, and that was also the case today. However, there are only so many adjustments that can be made once the cracks have become cracks. Any manager, regardless of his or her inclination towards pragmatism, would find that there are no reasonable adjustments to the numerical crisis in which Tottenham found themselves.

It was bad enough before Destiny Udogie pulled his hamstring against Wolves, let alone when Fraser Forster was struck by illness. When Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon looked at the team sheet on Saturday morning, they had seen them lined up against Tottenham’s third-choice goalkeeper, third-choice centre-back, second or third-choice right-back on the opposite flank, Radu Dragusin and an 18-year-old midfielder. old midfielder moonlighting as a central defender. The latter two had “literally gotten off their sickbeds to play together,” Postecoglou said. Dragusin, “shattered at half-time”, would not make it into the second half, leaving debutant Brandon Austin protected by Archie Gray and Djed Spence.

Long before that, Postecoglou had made his adjustments. Since losing a 2-0 lead at home to Chelsea, Spurs have had a double pivot in midfield instead of their manager’s favored 4-3-3. Given the need to protect the backline, it was immediately clear today that the intensity of the Tottenham press was not what it was before. The line was still extremely high – some things will never change – but reasonable adjustments had been made given the situation Spurs find themselves in.

With Rodrigo Bentancur suspended and Yves Bissouma let down, it was up to Lucas Bergvall to step in alongside Pape Matar Sarr. He did that manfully for an hour and received a lot of praise from his manager. “Lucas was incredible today as an 18-year-old playing in that position. I just see so much to be positive about.”

Bergvall embraced the pressure coming his way from Newcastle’s robust, dynamic midfield of seasoned internationals. The teenager carried the ball fearlessly as he avoided the attentions of Joelinton and Bruno Guimaraes. Without it, Pedro Porro might never have found the space to crawl in and deliver the cross that allowed Dominic Solanke to open the scoring.

It’s just that at the most decisive moment, Bergvall was one of the young players whose inexperience was punished. Gray was closer to the Newcastle press than he should have been to receive Brandon Austin’s pass, but of course he was. Another 18-year-old, this player who plays centre-back despite being a natural midfielder, could be forgiven in his first season in the Premier League for not understanding why he had to stand next to the penalty area rather than in front of it.

Bergvall wanted to push the ball past Joelinton and send Spurs flying up the field. Just 90 seconds earlier that had led to his side’s opener, but now it would lead to a draw at Newcastle. The ball poked at the Brazilian instead of around him, Guimaraes slipped inside Anthony Gordon and the lead went away from a low drive that a keeper with more experience than Austin might well have attracted.

Postecoglou seemed to believe this was the moment the game changed. He was “as angry as I have ever been in my career that the players were denied the proper rewards for a fantastic performance.” If he never quite put into words what he was talking about, it seemed, he would eventually suggest that a handball that wasn’t, in the build-up to the goal, was the cause of his anger.

“I am devastated that the boys did not get the reward they deserved,” he added. “Our football was excellent against a very good opponent who is in form and in a good position. I thought it was brilliant, excellent and a game we deserved to win.”

‘I know what everyone wants me to say [about the goal]. All I can say is that on any other day, on a fair and level playing field, we would have won that match.”

The goal should have remained within the letter of the law. Ahead of the 2020–2021 season, the handball rules were amended so that while a goal would still be disallowed if the goalscorer scored by mistake, it would no longer be disallowed if the same happened to a teammate in the build-up to the goal. It’s also easy to see why Postecoglou feels wronged. It feels as Newcastle were given too much of an advantage because the ball accidentally hit Joelinton’s hand.

Instead, it was just the latest setback for a coach who will face even more questions about his future with Tottenham even closer to the relegation places than the European ones. Luck is simply not on his side. It was almost a surprise that when Austin went down in the second half, he was able to shake off a blow. On Thursday, this team only had 11 fit players in training.

Given that, it’s worth noting how impressive Tottenham ultimately were in passing. In the first half they held up about as well as could be expected given the disparity in talent between the two sides, especially in midfield. It took an excellent combination of strength and technique to ultimately secure Newcastle’s lead, with the visitors picking the ball from a Spurs throw-in before Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali worked the ball from left to right and Jacob Murphy. His low cross forced the exhausted Dragusin to do something. All he could do was bounce the ball off Isak’s shoe.

From that moment on, Newcastle would hardly threaten again. Some of that is on them. For all the talent with which they attacked their early deficit, from about the hour mark they seemed determined to play like an underdog desperately clinging to a lead. Likewise, the introduction of James Maddison, Heung-Min Son and Bissouma simultaneously gave Spurs more control in Newcastle’s half, less energy but more guile.

Even before then, Postecoglou’s men had refused to give in to the apparent impossibility of the task as there was only one first-choice defender left in their XI. Sarr had crossed from a good spot early on. Solanke had openings to add another. There was never quite parity, but it was easy to understand why Tottenham’s head coach felt he was being given a hard time.

After all, he did what his critics asked of him. Against a more powerful opponent, Postecoglou had approached this task with some caution, adapting his system to keep Tottenham in it rather than taking the game to the opponent. The fact that it has not yielded results says more about how challenging his task is at the moment. There simply aren’t the players who can do much.