Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou reacted furiously to his players’ inability to take responsibility and play in a positive manner against Chelsea on Thursday night
Ange Postecoglou snapped and screamed at his Tottenham players to show some bravery during their damaging defeat against Chelsea.
Thursday night’s 2-0 loss to their London rivals dealt a severe blow to Spurs’ hopes of qualifying for the Champions League. Trevoh Chalobah scored the first goal for the Blues with a header from Conor Gallagher’s free kick, and Nicolas Jackson added a second with a rebound after Cole Palmer hit the crossbar.
The 3-2 setback to Arsenal in the north London derby was Tottenham’s second defeat in five days against rivals. They are now seven points behind Aston Villa in fifth place, and even though they still have a game in hand, fourth place seems far away at this time.
Spurs didn’t produce much against Chelsea, and Postecoglou was not happy with their performance. The TV cameras captured him giving his teammates a hard time from the sidelines in the 32nd minute, with the score at 1-0.
He yelled, directing his furious commands at Pape Sarr and Cristian Romero: “Pape, stop passing it f***ing backwards! Forward it to others! You distribute it to others. Gary Neville said of the outburst in the Sky Sports commentary, “He’s having a good go at Sarr and Romero.” He lost it!
“Angry, Ange! Honestly, at halftime, Karen Carney remarked, “I’ve never seen him so passionate and angry.” “It’s really about [Brennan] Johnson and Son [Heung-min], they missed the ball, lost possession, and gave away this free-kick that led to the goal. They kept getting into midfield and giving it away.”
After failing to get the response he was hoping for, Postecoglou called for substitutions in the sixty-third minute, substituting Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, James Maddison, and Rodrigo Bentancur for Sarr, Yves Bissouma, and Richarlison. However, Jackson added the game-winning second goal for Chelsea, meaning the triple change did not have the expected impact.
In the post-match interview, Postecoglou was still very much in the mix. He replied, “I have to accept responsibility for that; that is on me. that wasn’t good enough.” “I am the manager and the one who promoted them, and it was insufficient. We weren’t communicating my message when we performed as well as we did in the first half.
“Come on mate, we didn’t play well. Do you want me to write you a dossier of where it went wrong?” he said in response to a question about the message he was attempting to convey to his players. We seem to have lost some of our faith and conviction in our football, and it is my responsibility to make that right.
It was our style of play, and we were far from adequate, that mattered, not that we let up the [first] goal. I’m responsible for that. For a while now, we’ve been somewhat of a grind, but that’s part of the challenge and part of our development. We have to put up a show, and sometimes that means working hard. We didn’t have much today.”
