Presser points | Spurs 1-2 Ipswich | Ange Postecoglou
Sun 10 November 2024, 20:00|Tottenham Hotspur
Ange Postecoglou spoke to the media after our 2-1 defeat against Ipswich Town in the Premier League at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday.
Overall view
First up, Ange was asked, 'what went wrong today?'
Ange: "We didn't start the game well at all. It was all sort of passive, without the ball, with the ball. I felt we didn't get the tempo right or intensity right and then we gave ourselves a mountain to climb. Second half we were in the ascendancy and had opportunities obviously but we didn't do enough with them."
Going behind in games
It was put to Ange that going behind in home games was a bit of a theme - was it an issue?
Ange: "They're all different sorts of scenarios. When we went behind against Villa we were playing well. We weren't playing well today. So you've got to look at in isolation today, it was a different scenario for me. I don't think it was anything like last time. We gave ourselves too much of a deficit to try to overcome. Obviously second half we had the opportunities to do that, but we should never have been in that position."
Too passive?
The journalists followed up Ange's first answer to ask why being passive had happened against Ipswich, and recently at Palace...
Ange: "That's down to me. That's my responsibility. The inconsistency we're having this year, ultimately it comes down to me and my approach and something I need to try and fix and see if I can help the players in that area."
Thursday-Sunday
Ange was asked if the squad was struggling to deal with the Thursday-Sunday side of playing in Europe...
Ange: "I shouldn't think so. I don't think so. If we were seeing that we'd probably feel it more at the end of games and we're not feeling it at the end of games. We're finishing games strongly. We can't start games like that at this level and expect to overcome the gap that exists between us and the other teams."
Time wasting
Ange was asked if he had any complaints with perceived time wasting from the visitors...
Ange: "Look, I think it's the way the Premier League is going. It's pretty strategic now. You can almost look at your clock around the 20-minute mark and some player will go down, they'll all come over to coach and get instructions. It's funny, I always liked the Premier League because it wasn't like that. You would watch teams play in Europe and get frustrated by it, but now it's part of the game here as well. Nothing we can do about it. For us, if we want to mitigate those things because we don't do it and we want the game to be played, then we shouldn't give opportunities for the opposition to do that."
Team news
Finally, Ange was asked if there were any updates on Pape Matar Sarr and Dominic Solanke, as both appeared to pick up knocks...
Ange: "I think Pape is all right. He just got a bit of a knock. Dom jarred his knee, it was pretty sore but he wanted to continue. Hopefully, it is nothing serious."