Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou said his team usually “work on set-pieces all the time” after his side suffered a third straight defeat to their bitter rivals Arsenal at home on Sunday.
A Gabriel Magalhães header in the second-half decided a 1-0 north London derby win for Arsenal and extended the home side’s miserable record at defending from free-kicks and corners.
The Gunners, who were somehow depleted after several first-team members missed the short trip, gave a spirited performance to walk away with all three points at the end of 90 minutes.
Tottenham tickets have now seen a massive jump in demand after Postecoglou continues to claim that he always wins something in his second season.
Postecoglou defends his team
Spurs manager Postecoglou has repeatedly rejected claims that his team is vulnerable when defending set-pieces. In his response, the former Celtic and Australia coach said it is wrong to suggest he doesn’t care about the problem.
“I know that, for some reason, people think I don’t care about set pieces,” Postecoglou told reporters after the game. “I understand the narrative, but we work on them all the time.
“We held them [Arsenal] well for the most part, but switched off for one and paid a price. They’re a very big threat from set-pieces and it only takes one.
“It wasn’t just [Cristian] Romero, others switched off too. The delivery was spot on and Gabriel is a threat in those situations.
“We paid a price for it, but you learn from that and you move on. It’s my burden to carry and I’m fine with that.
“For me, it’s about the finer details of us getting to where we want to be — for us, the way forward is to try to turn the football we’re playing into something meaningful.”
Since the start of last season, Nottingham Forest (23) are the only team still in the Premier League to have conceded goals from set-pieces than Spurs (18).
Since the arrival of Ange Postecoglou in London, his side are yet to taste victory against Arsenal. Spurs have won just once in the league this season and their recent record under Postecoglou has seen them lose seven and win three of their last 11 league games.
Against Arsenal, Spurs struggled to take advantage of their early attacking threat and Postecoglou said his players need to show more belief.
“A lot of times, with more belief or conviction in the final third we could have taken more of our opportunities,” he said.
“We lacked conviction to make the most of them.
“It has been the story of our season so far, we played in their half and created chances but we lack a bit of belief in the final third. That’s what we need to fix. It was always going to be decided in moments and they capitalised on theirs.
“We’ve just got to keep working at it mate, that’s my job. I’ve just got to keep giving the feedback to the guys, trying to guide them in the right way to make them see that for all their dominance in the game, you need to be clear-headed in those kind of moments and, that’s my role to try to guide them in the right way.”
Postecoglou cannot defend his players for long if he wants to remain in the job. He has to encourage and motivate his players to start delivering in big games such as the recent one against Arsenal.
We have got to execute better – Postecoglou
“It’s disappointing, obviously,” said Ange on the club’s Review Show. “It’s a big game for us, for our supporters and not winning and losing that game is disappointing and painful.
“It’s pretty similar to the other games this year. We’ve controlled the game, we’ve played in the right areas, we just didn’t execute again in that final third like we should have. We had some good chances, we had opportunities to create more good chances and against good teams if you don’t do that… and then we switched off for a set piece and you pay the price.”
Asked if he felt his side deserved more for the endeavors so far, Ange responded: “I’ve always felt you get what you deserve in this game, and we need to do more to get what we want, but there’s no doubt in all four games that we’ve dominated in the way I want us to, controlled games and created more opportunities than the opposition – but that’s meaningless unless you execute as well, and we’ve got to execute better.”
Postecoglou has a young team and will need to step things up if he wants to achieve success in North London with Spurs.
Vicario backs Postecoglou to excel
Vicario visibly represented the disappointment of the dressing room when he spoke after Sunday’s narrow derby loss to Arsenal. However, he went ahead to lend his support to the manager, labelling him as a brilliant person.
“Yes, it hurts a lot,” said ‘Vic’, while speaking on the club’s The Review Show. “Everyone in the dressing room… we prepared the best for this game, so it was important for us like every game is important, but this is special for our crowd, and we know this.
“So, now we have just to take that pain and the disappointment, but we know football always gives you another opportunity and we just have to move forward looking forward to the next games we have to face.”
It was put to Vicario if that pain could work to drive us forward. “We have to stick together, to believe in our football, and just carry on like that. We have a great, brilliant coach, and brilliant staff who can help us, so we just have to stay together and believe in our football, because we played such good games until now. Today is a big defeat, we take the responsibility for that and now we just have to prepare our best level for the next games.”
Spurs will return to action this weekend in the Premier League with a home tie against Brentford before they return into Europe where they will face Qarabag in their UEL campaign opener on Thursday 26 September. The month then ends with a trip to Old Trafford to face United on Sunday 29 September.
