Ange Postecoglou was pleased with his side after Tottenham Hotspur defeated Southampton at home today. The 3-1 win not only gave the team (and the fans) a bit of a vibes boost heading into a critical Europa League first leg match against Eintracht Frankfurt, but also an important league win that pushed them up to 14th in the table.
But it wasn’t all positive. Spurs struggled in the second half, at one point giving Soton 70% possession, and conceded a goal before scoring a late penalty to regain a two goal cushion. Postecoglou said that this wasn’t the plan, and that he was a little disappointed with how the team came out of the locker room for the second half.
“I was really happy with the first half. First half I thought we were really disciplined, well organised and sort of limited them to one chance. Every time we went forward we looked dangerous and as threatening as we’ve looked for quite a while, really fluent, obviously scored two goals, one disallowed and Aaron [Ramsdale] has pulled off some good saves. Really pleased.
“Second half not so much as I thought we became way too passive without the ball. We allowed Southampton to get a little bit of rhythm, we were really sloppy with ball and the substitutions we made didn’t really make the impact I wanted. As you said, that allows them to get a goal at the end which was disappointing and something we need to improve on. Overall the important thing is we got the win, scored three goals and everyone got through unscathed and ready for a big night on Thursday.”
It certainly wasn’t always champagne football, but ultimately the result is what matters the most, and beating Soton meant Spurs were spared the ignominy of losing to all three teams in the relegation zone this season. But even with a poor second half performance, what really horked Postecoglou off was, once again, VAR. In a lengthy review that lasted upwards of five minutes, the video assistant referee eventually (and controversally) chalked off what would’ve been Tottenham’s second goal, a short range strike from Lucas Bergvall. Ange made his frustrations with the system known, in what is intended to be the last match week before the debut of Semi-Automated Offisde (SAO) technology next weekend.
“They draw those lines, is anyone convinced by those? This is not a slight on anyone as I don’t think it favours us or not favours us but the fact we’re waiting five minutes I really don’t think that’s what technology was brought in for. I think it’s gone too far down the road for anyone to claw it back. We used to allow the assistants to make those decisions and we all accepted it.
“There was one in midweek with Chelsea and if they had gave it I wouldn’t have complained and said it was a toenail offside because I’ve had that my whole career. Offside was never meant to be microscopically adjudged but if they ever get to a place when that is done instantaneously then I accept it because offside is offside.
“I just can’t believe that this is what we brought it in for to stand around for five minutes for something that in the end is still, in my view anyway, is inconclusive. Like I said, the semi-automated will come in, says it’s going to hopefully improve and speed up the process but I didn’t think there was a crying need for the game of football to be disrupted like this but it has been and, as I keep saying, the overwhelming majority of voices are in favour of it and that kind of means it is very hard to stem that tide.”
Brennan Johnson, who scored two of Spurs’ three goals on the day (Mathys Tel scored the third on a penalty kick right before the full time whistle), was one of Tottenham’s best performers. Johnson, to put it mildly, hasn’t always been a consistent performer, but he’s Spurs’ leading scorer this season with 11 goals and seems to pop up in the right spot to tap in a goal or shoot from a cutback pass. Postecoglou said this is no accident.
“With Brennan he’s always in the areas we need him to be. He’s probably one of the most disciplined players we have in terms of making sure he’s always in the right positions and that’s why he gets his goals. There have been times this season when his form has suffered because of the team more than anything else.
“I think like we played in the first half Brennan becomes a really important player for us as we’re a constant threat, breaking lines, making half-space runs, we were getting balls into the box in the areas we need to and every time we went forward we looked like scoring. If we do that then I think it’s not a matter of confidence for Brennan, it just gives you more opportunities as the one thing about him is that he will always be in those positions so it’s up to us to match his discipline in that.”
Destiny Udogie and Micky van de Ven were both consigned to the bench for this match in what was otherwise a strong starting XI lineup, but Ange confirmed that the goal was to get both of those players a little extra rest before hosting Frankfurt this coming Thursday. Ange also addressed the fitness of Lucas Bergvall, another top performer for Spurs on Sunday; Bergvall’s sub vs. Chelsea earned Big Ange boos from the Spurs traveling support, and precipitated Postecoglou’s ill-conceived interaction with the fans during that match. Ange seemed to confirm that Bergvall’s sub on Thursday was due to fitness, not performance.
“Yeah Destiny and Micky are fine. They have missed a lot of football this year so it made sense to put them on ice today. Richy is good. We’ve kind of done this with a few of the boys coming back and getting them involved in the matchday and the possibility of him getting a run today, but I just thought when they’re involved in matchday it gets rid of a lot of the nerves of coming back or anxiety from coming back from a long time out. He’ll get a few more days in training and play a part from now on.
“[Lucas] looked a bit leggy on Thursday night but I thought it was important for him to get it out of his system because he hadn’t played, because he didn’t play the internationals, for two-and-a-half weeks and he hardly played. With Thursday in mind, I thought giving him 60 minutes on Thursday (against Chelsea) and another good block, he looked a lot better today, physically stronger and in the first half I felt the midfield three of Rodri, Madders and Lucas were really, really good defensively but also when we had the ball, they were really strong and it worked well.”