Ange Postecoglou Tottenham Hotspur faced Manchester city on Tuesday night in a much needed game for both sides as Man city hopes to edge closer to their fourth consecutive league title and Tottenham hopes to battle for champions League spot. Though a lot of Tottenham fans prefer to forfeit the game if it meant their london rival Arsenal loose the league to Man city the second time in a roll, Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou insists his team will go all out to battle for a win.
But much to Ange’s willingness to fight it out, the game ended in a 2-nill defeat in favour of Man city.
Ange Postecoglou, known for his tactical prowess could have done better in his tactical approach to stop Man city.
3 tactical mistakes made by Ange Postecoglou
Firstly the first half was superb with Postecoglou setting Spurs up in a 4–2-4 instead of their usual 4-3-3. The height of their team held by the wingers with a box midfield.
It has allowed them to dominate Man City in central area whilst pinning their defence.Resulting in City’s lowest xG (0.35) in the first half in a game this season. His first mistake was leaving hojbjerg on despite his awful performance. Pierre-Emil Hojbjerg lost possession a total of 18 times and only won 50% of his tackles. Though he was later substituted, it was in the 85th minutes with just few minutes left in the game.
His second mistake was keeping Dejan Kulusevski on the bench. Kulusevski has scored a total of 6 goals and 3 assists in the premier League averaging a rating of 7.0 and was a key part of improved performance this season. But against Man city, he was benched and only came on in the second half. Despite this, he still had an xG of 0.53 from the total 1.33 xG created by Tottenham as a whole. Things might have turned out different if he had been introduced earlier.
Lastly his team inability to convert their chances. It was surprising seeing Tottenham go toe to toe with Man city for the majority of the first half and some parts of the second half. But their inability to convert their chances was their biggest mistake in the game. Heung min Son missed 2 big chances including a one on one chance in the later part of the second half. Dejan Kulusevski also missed a couple of big chances. Tottenham created a total of 1.33xG yet were somehow unable to get the ball to the back of the net.
Ange Postecoglou reaction after the game
Ange was fuming during the post match conference battering the players and the system put in place. When asked during the post match interview, he said “The foundations are really fragile. The last 48 hours have shown me that. It’s inside the club, outside the club.” He then spoke about changing the mentality around the club and making changes.
Also according to Fabrizo Romano , when he was asked for his thought on Spurs fans celebrating the loss and making chants about Arsenal, he replied “I don’t care. I just want to build a winning team. I want to win”.
