Everton 3-2 Spurs | Ange's verdict

Ange Postecoglou said our first half display at Goodison Park ‘gave us a mountain to climb’ at 3-0 down but gave credit to the team for pushing Everton all the way as it ended 3-2 in Sunday’s Premier League encounter.

Ange was forced to reshuffle his pack with midweek injuries to Yves Bissouma and Brennan Johnson and the late loss of striker Dominic Solanke, who suffered a knee injury in training on Saturday, making it 11 players unavailable for the trip to the blue half of Merseyside.

That brought a tactical switch to 3-4-3, but Ange conceded that the players ‘struggle to cope with the structure’ as goals from Dominic Calvert-Lewin (13 minutes), Illiman Ndiaye (30) and an own goal from Archie Gray (45+7) putting the home side firmly in control at half-time.

Ange changed back to 4-3-3 after the break and the players fought until the end. Dejan Kulusevski’s exquisite finished made it 3-1 on 77 minutes before Richarlison made it 3-2 on 90+2, but with only two minutes of added time remaining, we couldn’t find a third.

Speaking pitchside for our Review Show at Goodison, Ange said: “It was a tough day. First half wasn’t great, and that’s predominantly down to me, I had to make some changes to the team, and we struggled to cope with the structure we started with, and Everton capitalised. That gave us a mountain to climb in the second half. Credit to the players. They don’t give in. It would have been very easy at half-time, 3-0 down, to go into self-preservation mode and lose discipline, but they kept trying until the end, but we came up short.”

Ange on how losing three more players between the end of the derby on Wednesday night and kick-off at Everton affected preparations...

“It’s not easy. We lost Dom late in training yesterday, he’s a key part of what we do, so we had to adjust again. We’ve guys like Richy and Ben (Davies) who are just coming back from long absences, Mikey (Moore) as well, we have to be careful how much we expose them. We had 11 fit players today. It makes it a challenge, but that’s the situation we’re in. We’ll eventually get out of it at some point but, at the moment, the responsibility lies with me to steer us out of this.”

Ange on what all these issues do for morale...

“Look, morale is easy because there’s a determination, particularly from me, and you see it in the players, we know we’re in a tough situation right now, we all believe we’ll get through it and once we do get through it, when we get some of our players back, we’ll get more consistency in our performances in all competitions. You can’t afford to drop your head, because we have a responsibility, and that responsibility lies with me right now to get the club out of the situation we’re in.”

Ange’s latest on Dom...

“It was just one of those things, it wasn’t like it was even a challenge, it was him trying to shoot and he twisted his knee, just one of those things, unfortunately, that we’re going through at the moment. We’ll get the full extent of it, we’re hoping it’s not serious, but it will certainly keep him out for a few weeks.”