Ange Postecoglou has been speaking after Tottenham Hotspur beat Brentford 3-1 in the Premier League on Saturday afternoon.
Spurs were only 25 seconds into the game when Brentford scored after Bryan Mbeumo volleyed home from a Keane Lewis-Potter cross from the left. Dejan Kulusevski had given the ball away not far from his own box and then Mbeumo was given too much space by Van de Ven to crash his shot home.
Tottenham were level just seven minutes later. Dominic Solanke hit his first goal for Tottenham as he slotted home the loose ball after James Maddison's shot was saved, the midfielder having done well to intercept a loose pass. The hosts found a second goal on 28 minutes when Maddison again won the ball back, Son Heung-min raced up the pitch and found Johnson, who ran at his man and buried a clinical shot in the bottom left corner.
Spurs had further opportunities but Maddison completed an excellent individual performance with a lovely chipped goal. Bissouma made a sliding tackle at one end, Cristian Romero sent Son away and he picked out Maddison, who chipped it delightfully over the onrushing keeper.
Here's what Postecoglou had to say after the game in the full transcript from his press conference:
You must be delighted by the way your players bounced straight back from conceding early on?
Yeah, it wasn't an ideal start, obviously, but, to be honest, it was like it never happened. The boys just sort of went at it. That's what we wanted to do today. We knew Brentford, they're going to be pretty aggressive with and without the ball and we love that part of the game.
We thought if we really brought our own energy and intensity that we know we can, with and without the ball we could cause them a lot of problems and we did. We were relentless the whole game and fully deserved the win.
What did you make of James Maddison today?
Yeah, I thought he was good. I thought the whole team was good. Everyone was really focused on making sure we dominated the game in the areas we want to dominate. We kind of knew that they'd try and play out a bit. That's great for us because it gives us an opportunity to press real hard and I thought all the midfielders really supported the front three well there.
They were going to press us when we had the ball and I thought Vic and the back four managed it really well and the midfielders played a key role with that. So I think everyone really contributed to a strong performance.
Two important goals in a week for Brennan Johnson and the fans gave him a great reception after he scored, that must have been pretty pleasing to see?
Brennan's had a top week. He scored in the cup to get us through, scored the winner and he scored a fantastic goal again today to get us ahead and he was a real threat all the way through. He had a bit of a tough period last week and sometimes it gives you perspective about what's important and what's important to Brennan is that he's a much-loved teammate and like I said last week, he works hard every day and I got no doubt he'll make a big impact for our club.
Did today with the crowd singing his name show the disparity between the fans inside the stadium and social media?
Oh, I don't know. I really don't know. I had my say on social media and all that sort of stuff during the week. But anyone who watches Brennan play, if they think he doesn't give everything he can every week and work as hard as he can for the team and how much he cares, I'll be very surprised.
But that's to one side. For every footballer you've got to go through difficult moments and he's handled it really well. Like I said, I think it gives you a perspective that when the next difficult moment comes - inevitably it always comes - I'm sure he'll know what's important to him.
Good for Dominic Solanke to get off the mark as well?
Yeah, I mean, again Dom's still working his way to match fitness. You saw at the end there, he was out of gas. We wanted to take him off a bit earlier, but we needed that third goal to kill the game off. But he was good again, I think he's been good in every game he's played for us, and as you said, strikers love scoring goals and, yeah, a great moment for him to score his first goal for the club, particularly at home. But aside from that, again it was a really strong performance by him. I thought he led the line really well, important for us today as a link up there because we knew they'd go pretty aggressive on a man-to-man marking and he was going to have to hold the ball up for us and I thought he did that really well.
I just wanted to know from your perspective what happened when Vicario appeared to touch the ball outside the box, what did you see?
I think I saw exactly what you saw.
Well, I'm not too sure....
Well what makes you think I am surer? (laughs)
You were closer to the pitch?
I was closer to the pitch? (Laughs) You were higher up though. Okay, so maybe I saw exactly what you saw.
Did he get away with one there?
Get away with it? So have you seen it and said it's outside, because I haven't seen it. I've got no idea.
I think it's been ruled outside but not a obvious goalscoring opportunity so hasn't been VAR'd.
So, if it wasn't an obvious goalscoring opportunity, it means even if he was penalised it would have been a free-kick and that's a big turning point in the game? A free kick outside the box? (laughs) Okay, look I guess we were lucky to get the result.
There seemed to be more urgency today, did the early goal for Brentford almost help bring that?
No, I think I spoke about it last week that I felt in the first half against Arsenal it was quite evident they were trying to slow the game down. I thought we contributed towards that, especially with restarts and we spoke about it in the week that we are at our best when we play quickly. Obviously the opposition will try and stop us doing that, but from our perspective the more times when we're in control of the ball and play at our tempo, it's better. It was highlighted last week that even though we were on top of the game against Arsenal we kind of let them off the hook a couple of times by slowing the game down ourselves. I thought it was a lot better today and we had more urgency without rushing around our football, which helps us.
Were you pleased with the off-ball intensity, with Maddison winning the ball back for two goals?
Yeah but that's been great all year. I think objective measures would say we are probably the best in the league and one of the best in Europe in terms of our pressurising and I thought it would be important. You saw Brentford, you saw how they try to play out from the ball, which is an opportunity for us to try to win it in high areas and I thought we did. We created some unbelievable opportunities from it, including the first goal and we probably could have got a couple more out of it.
You said the team struggled to capitalise in key moments against Arsenal, with Maddison popping up with the third, is that the biggest difference?
I mean we were still winning at that point but in terms of the game that is sort of what we've been missing. We spoke about it during the week that for all our dominance we haven't really got the rewards for our play and you need to. You saw even today at 2-1 they had a couple of chances and could be back in the game at 2-2 even though we had so much dominance. So, you need to stay alert but I thought it was an excellent goal. The three leaders in the club contributing; Romero, Sonny and Madders. That is what you are looking for in those moments.
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