Ange: “All the focus has to be on us and developing our football”
Fri 18 August 2023, 17:10|
Tottenham Hotspur
Ange Postecoglou has stressed the importance of focusing on our game ahead of Saturday’s encounter at home to Manchester United (kick-off 5.30pm).
Having started our Premier League campaign with a 2-2 draw at Brentford, we take on the Red Devils in what will be the first taste of Premier League action at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for our new Head Coach.
Whilst Ange was impressed with his side’s resolve at the Gtech Community Stadium, the Australian has reiterated his desire to keep improving the way we play and impose our new brand of football on the opposition rather than get too bogged down in nullifying their threats.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference on Friday (18 August), Ange said: “It's a great challenge for us but the most important thing is that it's our first home game in the Premier League this season.
“Last week we showed some really good characteristics in terms of our resilience but tomorrow is about showing a little bit more of our football and hopefully impose our game style on a really good opponent. That has to be our goal every week now: to see if we can improve the way we play our football and make an impact against the best teams.
“We're at that stage where all our focus has to be on us and developing our football so if we focus too much on negating the opposition then we're not really building. That has to be our ambition tomorrow, that's where we're going to lean towards rather than focusing too much on what the opposition potentially has to offer or where they can hurt us. I'm sure our fans will be up for it so I'm looking forward to it.”
Erik ten Hag’s side made a winning start to their campaign with a closely contested 1-0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers at Old Trafford on Monday night. Wolves were on top for large spells and caused the Manchester side real problems particularly on the break, but Raphael Varane’s header on 76 minutes earned them three points despite not being at their best.
Although the main focus this weekend is to impose our game on the opponent, Ange has not overlooked their patterns of play and has been impressed with the progress made under a Dutch manager who he has upmost respect for.
“The first thing you look for in an opponent is the pattern in the way they play,” explained our Head Coach. “It's the same with Erik now, the players are grasping his ideas and there's a consistency in the way they do things. It'll be a different challenge [to Brentford] but no less challenging because they have a team that's been working on it for a fair while now.
When asked about the challenge of facing Ten Hag, Ange said: “I rate him [Ten Hag] very highly. I followed his days at Ajax - and his days previous to that – where he built a great team there. You can see he's made an impact at a club where it's difficult to do so since Sir Alex Ferguson retired so I've got a great respect for him. He has earned the right to coach one of the biggest clubs in the world and done a good job.”
