Ange Postecoglou was so giddy about getting some players back that he chose not to play his best ones against the reigning champions. Defeat to Manchester City is on him.
Ange Postecoglou has been aghast at having to answer the same questions about Tottenham’s struggles this season. “I don’t know how else to explain it, mate,” he said earlier this month, shaking his head while extolling the virtues of his young, overworked team during an injury crisis.
But those “most extreme circumstances” have abated to the point where he can afford to drop the guy who got two assists in their last game against Ipswich, the guy who scored a superb solo goal in that same game and has been their best player this season, and the guy who also scored and has been lauded for one of the best individual performances of the season in the aftermath. He must have quite the squad. That’s the only logical explanation for a top manager to be leaving those players out of the starting lineup for a trip to the Etihad.
You can probably guess where we’re going here. A top manager would surely have looked at the fixture list and decided not to play Son Heung-min, Dejan Kulusevski and Djed Spence against relegation-threatened Ipswich if he didn’t think them capable of playing two games in the space of four days in order to take the field from the start against the reigning champions. Ange Postecoglou is not a top manager.
He even hailed Djed Spence’s form as being “as good as any full-back” in the Premier League when asked about his England chances, pointing out that “he’s not really a left-back” before switching him into his more natural position to tear Ipswich apart on Saturday.
But Pedro Porro was preferred and Jeremy Doku was delighted to see him. There were at least three occasions when the City winger breezed past Porro when we thought he would either have been bullied off the ball by Spence or at least matched stride for stride.
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It was his deflected cross that found the actual Erling Haaland unmarked in the six-yard box to sweep the ball past Guglielmo Vicario, after Destiny Udogie – whom Spence should also been playing ahead of – watched the Premier League’s most feared marksman amble past him into position. It was horrible defending.
City were good in the first half, sweeping the ball from side to side quickly. Savinho really should have scored from an excellent Doku cross and Haaland could have had a hat-trick had he not fluffed one chance and seen another well saved by Vicario. But Spurs were all over the place.
They looked like they didn’t know what they were doing again, having looked like a proper team for the first time in a long time against Ipswich, just as they did for most of the second half here, particularly after the introductions of Son, Spence and Kulusevski shortly after the hour mark. Funny that.
Postecoglou has had the significant caveat of Tottenham’s undeniably significant injury crisis to lean upon amid questions over his future this season, with three Premier League wins on the bounce before this drawing attention away from his side being knocked out of both domestic cups. But there’s no excuse for this team selection.
“Those three have played a lot of football in recent times,” he said ahead of kick-off. But he’s got to plan better. Wilson Odobert, James Maddison and Porro were all fit to start against Ipswich but were saved for a trip to Manchester City. It just doesn’t make sense. Playing your best players in big games is Football Management 101.