The Athletic’s Charlie Eccleshare has spotted a worrying pattern for Tottenham when they take the lead in matches under Ange Postecoglou.
Disastrous second half against Brighton
A lot of the good work that Tottenham have done over the last few weeks was undone by an extremely poor 20 minutes at the start of the second half against Brighton.
Not only did the Lilywhites concede three poor goals but they struggled to muster up any sort of response, looking helpless as the Seagulls flooded forward with numbers.
It is the sort of performance that showed that Spurs still have a long way to go before they can have ambitions about competing with the best sides in the Premier League.
Eccleshare notices pattern
That second-half performance at the Amex appeared to come out of nowhere, given how much control Tottenham have had over their games this season.
However, Eccleshare pointed out that we saw a similar pattern from Spurs away from home last season as they struggled to show any kind of threat on the counter-attack while having the lead.
He wrote: ‘Something that happened yesterday as well for Spurs that’s happened a few times under Ange is in away games creating nothing in the 2nd half having been ahead. Wolves, Everton, West Ham last season eg. They seem to struggle to retain a threat on the counter when leading sometimes.’
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Postecoglou takes responsibility
Postecoglou admitted in his post-match press conference that the performance from his side in the second-half was unacceptable, stating that he saw a drop off in intensity.
However, rather than throwing his players under the bus, the Tottenham boss accepted responsibility for the result and insisted that he will try to ensure it does not happen again.
He told Football.London: “It’s unacceptable at the end of the day. You can kind of understand that you’re not going to win every game. But there’s the manner you lose games. And that’s the first time since I’ve been here that we’ve lost the game in that manner. And like I said, unacceptable.”
When asked what he can do about it, he responded: “There’s a lot I can do about it. That’s why I’m in the role. If I couldn’t do anything about it I’d get somebody else to sit here.”