Ange Postecoglou cut a frustrated figure throughout Tottenham Hotspur’s 2-1 home defeat against Newcastle United on Saturday. He seemed infuriated by some of the refereeing decisions and snapped in a fiery five-minute press conference afterwards.
“I’m just really, really angry — the angriest I think I have ever been in my career that (the players) were denied the right rewards for a fantastic performance,” he said.
It was out of character for Postecoglou, who can be irritable after a loss but rarely raises his voice. The Athletic breaks down his post-match comments and analyses what upset him.
The Newcastle equaliser and “fair and even playing ground”
The press conference started with a fairly routine question about whether Postecoglou felt proud of his team’s performance despite the result. The 59-year-old was so eager to provide an answer he almost interrupted the reporter asking it.
Sometimes when Tottenham lose, Postecoglou can be difficult to hear because he speaks so quietly, but he was animated yesterday when asked to give his opinion on Newcastle’s first goal.
“No, because I know what everyone wants me to say, but all I’ll say is that on any other day, on a fair and even playing ground, we would have won that game,” he said. “Simple as that. Don’t keep asking me about the decision. If you guys have no opinion about it, that’s fine. I know what my opinion is and, as I said, if that was a different day and it was an even and fair playing ground, we would have won that game.”
Dominic Solanke had opened the scoring for Spurs in the fourth minute but, only 140 seconds later, Anthony Gordon equalised. Lucas Bergvall lost the ball in build-up play for the hosts, but replays showed it struck Joelinton’s hand before bouncing into Bruno Guimaraes’ path. Bergvall immediately protested to referee Andy Madley, while Postecoglou was seething on the touchline.
When the goal was not overturned by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), Tottenham’s senior assistant coach Matt Wells complained to the fourth official along with Sergio Reguilon, one of their substitutes.
Analysis: According to the laws of the game, which are determined by the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the officials made the correct decision.
Joelinton accidentally touches the ball with his hand while it is in a natural position. If a player scores directly with their hand or arm, or does so right after it touches either of those body parts, then it would be ruled out. In this scenario, the ball falls to Guimaraes who then passes it to Gordon. As neither of them handled the ball, the goal stood.
Postecoglou understandably felt annoyed, but Madley did not make a mistake.
After Gordon equalised, Joelinton was involved in a few other incidents that might have upset Spurs. Firstly, he crashed into Pedro Porro and went unpunished. Then he lost the ball to Dejan Kulusevski and dangled a leg that tripped Tottenham’s midfielder up as he attempted to counter. The Brazilian then caught Bergvall in the face when they were jostling for the ball from a throw-in. All of these incidents occurred in a six-minute period.
Yet Joelinton did not receive a booking until the 73rd minute, for a foul on substitute Son Heung-min.
How illness undermined Tottenham’s preparations
Postecoglou went into detail on an illness that has spread through his squad over the past week. It left Fraser Forster “bedridden”, which meant third-choice goalkeeper Brandon Austin made his first senior appearance for Spurs.
“Radu (Dragusin) and Archie (Gray) literally got off sickbeds to play today, and Radu was shattered at half-time,” Postecoglou said. “Brandon, obviously, we found out yesterday was playing. I can’t be prouder of the players, I’m just angry and disappointed it wasn’t football that denied them getting the rewards today.
“On Thursday, we literally had 11 fit players for training. But I don’t care about that. What I care about is the players put in an unbelievable performance, fantastic football, created chances, denied (Newcastle) and having to defend strongly, which we did. And it’s unfair on them, more than anything else, that they didn’t get the rewards today.”
Analysis: This helps to explain why Postecoglou was so emotional.
Tottenham are suffering from an injury crisis at the moment, with key defenders Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie unavailable, along with first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario. Porro is the only healthy member of Postecoglou’s preferred back four.
If Gray and Dragusin were doubts, it meant that at one stage Postecoglou had to consider playing without any recognised senior centre-backs. Dragusin was replaced by Reguilon at half-time, which meant full-back Djed Spence partnered Gray in central defence for the second half. It was a patchwork unit that pushed hard to keep out Newcastle, who have now won their past six games in all competitions.
If Spurs had won the match, or even drawn, it would have restored a bit of confidence ahead of Wednesday’s Carabao Cup semi-final first leg at home against league leaders Liverpool. Instead, they have failed to win for six league games in a row on their own pitch for the first time since October 2008 and with 24 points from 20 matches are closer to the relegation zone than the top four.
Returning to a familiar theme
Postecoglou’s anger seemed to have dissipated by the time he spoke about why Son, James Maddison and Yves Bissouma were only named on the bench. However, when he was asked about Solanke’s performance in front of the new England head coach Thomas Tuchel, who was watching from the stands, he went off script and fired another shot.
“(Solanke was) brilliant, but I think the whole team was,” he said. “Considering everything we had to go through and the situation we are in right now — to put on a performance like that, I take my hat off to the players. I thought they were outstanding. I’m just really, really angry, the angriest I think I have ever been in my career that they were denied the right rewards for a fantastic performance.”
For the final question, Postecoglou was asked to clarify what had specifically upset him. He scrunched up his face and let rip.
“I know you just want me to say something, but I’m not going to,” he said. “I think it’s clear. Now, whether people agree with me or not, whether it wasn’t handball or it was accidental, I’m just not interested in any of that discussion. What I’m saying is, on any given day with a fair and even playing field and logical thought processes, we would have won that game. That’s it.
“You can make what you want of that. I don’t know what else to say about it.”
Analysis: You could argue that this was a PR masterclass from Postecoglou. He made it clear that he was angry with some of the decisions without ever mentioning the officials directly, which should mean he will avoid any disciplinary trouble. His claim that on “any given day” Spurs would have won deserves further scrutiny as they only registered an xG figure, which measures the quality of a team’s chances in a match, of 0.9 compared to Newcastle’s 2.4.
The emotions were not just restricted to Postecoglou.
When Reguilon drilled a pass across the box that his team-mates missed, he turned to the crowd and urged them to make more noise. In the 87th minute, Gray, Porro, Maddison and Bissouma all pushed Newcastle striker Alexander Isak as he walked off slowly when being substituted. When Tottenham were denied a throw-in during stoppage time, Maddison, Reguilon and Son all surrounded the referee in protest.
Tensions are clearly running high throughout squad and coaching staff alike as they try to navigate this challenging period. Spurs are wearing their emotions on their sleeves.
GO DEEPER
The Briefing: Tottenham 1 Newcastle 2 - Where were Maddison and Son? Can Isak keep scoring?
(Top photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)