Tottenham return to domestic action at the weekend with a London derby against West Ham, and Ange Postecoglou’s players had better prepare for a ferocious team talk from the manager.
Brighton defeat a low-point for Postecoglou
Before the international break, Spurs left their fans bitterly disappointed when they threw away a two-goal lead against Brighton, coming away from the Amex Stadium on the wrong end of a 3-2 scoreline.
First half dominance made way for complacency and clumsiness, with Brighton completely overwhelming the Tottenham players to take all three points.
At the time, Ange Postecoglou described the defeat as his worst since taking over at Spurs, particularly because of the manner in which his team capitulated (ESPN).
Postecoglou needs catharsis after international break
Since then, most of the squad have been away on international duty, while Postecoglou has remained at Hotspur Way with a small handful of his first-team squad.
Speaking to Optus Sport about that period of time and how he’s feeling about the Brighton game now, Postecoglou revealed he is ready to let the players know how unhappy he is about that defeat.
He said: “You never know if [the international break] is good or bad. Maybe for the players it was good, but I don’t like sitting on a loss. There can be a tendency to over-analyse things. It wasn’t a good one. The first half was unbelievable, but I didn’t like the second half and what we looked like.
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“It wasn’t the loss, it was the manner I wasn’t comfortable with. I’ve been sitting on it for 10 days, I’m ready to explode once they get back in the building and that will be my therapy.”
Players deserve a dressing down
This is exactly the right approach. The players might think they can run away from that defeat and sweep it under the rug, but it absolutely needs to be addressed and those mistakes must become a valuable lesson for the squad.
Progress cannot be made unless you confront the bad and the good in equal measure, and Postecoglou is clearly going to make sure no one can shirk the responsibility of what happened at Brighton.