Ange Postecoglou has revealed that he was miserable for nine days following Tottenham's 3-2 defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion. The team were on track to make it six wins on the spin in all competitions after taking a two-goal lead into the break at the Amex.
Conceding minutes after the restart to give Brighton hope, the hosts managed to secure all three points after Danny Welbeck completed the turnaround with a simple header from close range. Tottenham unfortunately didn't have the chance to immediately put things right due to the second international break of the season taking place.
That meant Postecoglou had a lengthy amount of time to stew on the result prior to his full set of players returning to the training ground following their international commitments. Ahead of Saturday's game against West Ham, Postecoglou opened up on what happened on the south coast and also gave an insight into what was said in the meeting involving his players.
“Wonderful, mate. Beautiful," joked the 59-year-old when asked what the past fortnight has been like. “It’s hard. But it’s not about me. That’s the first thing, you’ve got to separate that.
“This is not about me. It’s about what we’re trying to do to make ourselves the football team we want to be. What time does give you and I’d like to think even if it wasn’t international break the next day, it gives you perspective.
“You can’t dismiss the first half. You can’t just focus on the second half and that’s your only feedback. You can’t dismiss the five games we won before that, either. It’s all those kind of things. Time allows you to reflect a little bit better.
“It gives you perspective to then look at how I’m gonna… one thing is to say ‘I’m angry, I’m disappointed’, whatever. But how are we going to help the players that next time that happens, we deal with it better?
“You deal with the facts of stuff we think is important that we didn’t do in the second half. But, if it is about me. I was miserable for nine days, mate.”
With plenty to discuss after throwing away a two-goal lead following such an impressive first-half performance, Postecoglou talked through the stats that showed exactly why the team found themselves on the losing side.
“I can’t give feelings as feedback to players, I have to give them something," he explained. "The stats show that we were very passive in the second half, even from a physical standpoint.
“We pride ourselves on being the fittest team, the most intense team in the comp and our physical stats nosedived at the start of the second half. I just feel we went out there with the kind of attitude of ‘We’ll weather a bit of a storm and then finish strong and then the game is over done with’ because we were so dominant in the first half.
“Elite sport you can’t do that. You drop one or two per cent and you’re dropping off a cliff. Your performance doesn’t drop a little bit, you drop (considerably).
“Brighton obviously were hurting from the first half, they had a point to prove, they were at home, the crowd got behind them, all those things, and I don’t think we handled it well and stopped doing the things that fundamentally are the foundation of our football.
“It’s not me saying we weren’t competitive or didn’t look like we didn’t have any effort. There was data to back that up, especially that 20-minute spell. We just weren’t running. If you’re not running, then everything else becomes a consequence of that."
Asked for some context regarding the stats, Postecoglou added: "It’s not that complicated. It’s fair to say our sheer volume of running probably dropped 20-30 per cent in that 20 minute period, our high speed running, our sprinting certainly dropped. I saw that anecdotally. I said I could tell because we were passive.
"When we’re running it means we’re pressing and really aggressive in everything we do. We have the ball, we’re sprinting forward and I sensed that wasn’t happening. And the data backs that up. We got really passive.
"What that means is that you’re allowing momentum to shift to the opposition in that moment, and you might say well we’ll weather that momentum and finish strong, but we’re not built that way, that’s not how we play. I don’t know the exact stats but when they showed me the graph it’s fair to say it was some pretty marked heartbeats in there, put it that way. We didn’t flatline we went… (down)…"
One talking point after the game at Brighton was the lack of leaders in the Tottenham team to help them get over the line. Postecoglou wants all his players to take ownership and he firmly believes that leadership can be shown by anyone on the pitch and not just those who are part of Tottenham's leadership group.
“Part of the feedback to the players is, ‘If you feel it happening out there, the best way to arrest that is individuals to take action, to know what to do’. When people talk about leaders they think it’s the captain. But that’s where you fall into the trap because it might be the captain who is having a bad day," said the former Celtic boss.
“Leadership can be shown by the youngest player out there. I keep saying it. Every individual has the capacity to show leadership. Whether that’s on the football field, in your workplace, wherever, it could be the most inexperienced person who does an act that inspires others.
“Leadership is in that moment taking ownership of something. We didn’t have anyone who did that through that time. That is part of the discussion with the players. Maybe they are waiting for a Romero or somebody like that to do it.
“But if they’re not doing it, then well you can’t just stand by and let it happen. If you’re Micky van de Ven, then you can do it. If you’re Brennan Johnson, then you can do it.
“That’s got to be part of our growth as a team. As a group there are still areas of that sort of behaviour where we still need to grow. It’s not great but sometimes going through situations like that is where it’s laid bare and you can deal with it from then on.”
While some players may not be the most vocal on the pitch, players do make their feelings crystal clear to their teammates at times in the dressing room. So can he change how players are as individuals and make them more vocal on the pitch?
“Yeah, I think it's more commonplace than people may realise that is what happens in dressing rooms," revealed Postecoglou. "Players aren't afraid to speak up. I sometimes think that's a bit of a shield.
"For me, leadership is action. It's what you do in the heat of the action. Afterwards it's easy to argue. It's easy for me to say, you should have done this, you should have done that. In that moment, it's what you do. That is leadership. Where the instincts are to do something about it but for some reason you don't. Because you don't feel it's your place or you don't feel confident enough. That's leadership.
"Obviously, more experienced players tend to feel more comfortable in that space. But you can't just wait for that. What I'm trying to impress on the group is that they have the capacity within themselves to show that leadership. And you can change it.
"I think it's behaviour. It's not so much. I mean, the leadership. where you want somebody to be vocal, that's hard to change. Because that's a personality trait. Some people just don't. Romero's not a big talker, but he leads by example. So I'm not going to change it and say, ‘listen, Cuti you've got to speak more’. No, I'm not going to. That's personality and character.
"But behaviour you can change. Because behaviour is action. So you say, okay, you're not going to talk, but you know what, next time there's a 50-50 go and win it. And that's going to inspire everyone. Make sure that we're doing the disciplined things. Tell people to go and press. You go and press and then they'll see you pressing. So that's where I think you can change and you can develop leaders."
The defeat at Brighton was one of a number of times where Tottenham have let a healthy lead slip and subsequently ended up dropping valuable points. That was the case at Southampton in March 2023, which resulted in former boss Antonio Conte launching a scathing attack on his players and the club in his post-match press conference.
The Italian did mention that Tottenham could continue to change managers but the situation would keep happening at the club. Postecoglou was asked if there is anything still in those comments and if his job is to still change the mentality.
"Mate, if I accepted that what am I doing here? Seriously - if I accept that this is somehow impossible to change I am really stealing a living. Seriously, why am I here," he replied.
"I don't believe that and I never have. And if I fail to do the failure is on me, it's nothing to do with the club. It's on my because I know that coming into it that the club hasn't won anything for x amount of time.
"I know the tag on the club, I know all these things when I accepted the position so it's no good me saying now 'you know what? I can't do this, it's impossible no matter who you have'.
"I made the decision to step into it knowing all these things. It's not a secret. It was not like getting in here and going 'Jesus Christ, this club hasn't won anything for 14 years - can you believe it?
"I accepted that challenge so I can't sit here complaining that it's harder. It's why I'm here and it's up to me to change that. And if I don't then the failure's on me.
"The reason I think the past is irrelevant is because I can't change that. I wasn't here, I wasn't part of it - and maybe it was impossible, I don't know but from where I sit here right now I don't see it as impossible. I think it is achievable and that's why I'm going to do everything in my power to change it."
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