Ange Postecoglou was hammered by Tottenham fans for a major selection error in Wednesday night’s Premier League defeat to Manchester City, a result that ended the club’s three-match winning run.
Spurs went down to a 1-0 loss as City struck early through Erling Haaland and clung on at the end as the home side piled on the pressure without being able to force what would arguably have been a deserved equaliser.
However, Postecoglou was heavily criticised for his decision to leave out Tottenham‘s best player in recent weeks, Djed Spence, with Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski also starting the game on the bench as the Australian rotated his squad against the reigning Premier League champions.
Pedro Porro started the game at right-back ahead of Spence and was given a tough time by City winger Jeremy Doku and that decision left Spurs fans scratching their heads and claiming that Postecoglou got his team selection all wrong.
Reddit user coldseam wrote: “Ange really watched Doku torment Trent on the weekend and said “yeah let’s bench our best full-back against him”
Rowario11 rather bluntly added: “Ange has really [swear word beginning with ‘f’] this one”
Goalnado stated: “I understand wanting to give Djed a rest, but playing Porro against Doku is a total nightmare. It makes even less sense considering we’ve got a break between now and the AZ game”
Minimum_Apricot_9658 added: “I’m really getting the sense Ange doesn’t understand the concept of momentum shifts within a match and how to influence them lol”
kjl8921 said: “Pedro is gonna have nightmares about this match for a while”, while soSpursy7 added “Porro is such a downgrade on Spence”
Finally, lordymosh stated: “All of us can tell Spence would have dealt better with Doku. Don’t really get the decision to start Porro with a good bit of rest coming up”
Tottenham fans rave over Spence again
While Porro came under fire for his struggles coping with Doku, Spence was once again picked out by Tottenham fans and replacing Destiny Udogie at left-back midway through the second-half.
Reddit user TWest_1 said: “It’s honestly becoming comical how everything Djed Spence does is good and helpful”
Brennan_Superstar added: “I genuinely think Spence has 10x in value this season”
jackengle stated: “Not enough players in the squad with the physicality/skill combo that Djed has. I can’t believe how much better he is than the majority of our team”
jaytee158 added: “Spence is insanely good but he’s even better on the right. Whether he’s better than Udogie shouldn’t be the debate”
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