Tottenham may have moved back to the summit of the Premier League table on Monday evening but Ange Postecoglou was not completely satisfied with certain aspects of their 2-0 win over Fulham. Taking the lead in the 36th minute through Son Heung-min before James Maddison doubled their advantage nine minutes after the restart, the visitors still caused Spurs some issues and almost gave them a late fright.
The Premier League table may make for very good reading for Spurs fans at present due to their two-point cushion over Man City and Liverpool but Postecoglou will certainly not be getting carried away by it. Instead, he will be ensuring his players don’t repeat their poor use of the ball in the second half again, dubbing it the “worst sort of 45 minutes with the ball we’ve had all year”.
Following the victory over the west London club, no manager has taken more points than Postecoglou from their first nine Premier League games. That fine record was put to him in his post-match press conference, with the 58-year-old going on to discuss what disappointed him in the victory after firstly talking about his impressive start.
“It’s credit to everyone,” said the Australian. “We’ve had a really encouraging start to the season for sure, both results and performance-wise we have been really consistent.
“We had to work hard tonight. I thought first half we held it really well. We had to be pretty patient in the way we looked for the openings as Fulham were well organised, particularly defensively. I thought we showed our patience and I thought our pressing was outstanding the whole game.
“Maybe the first half we could have had one or two more just to put the game to bed. But really disappointed with the second half. With the ball we were nowhere near the levels we have been all year. That’s probably the worst sort of 45 minutes with the ball we’ve had all year.
“We’ve got to make sure we stay disciplined in our approach because in the end Vic made a couple of great saves to keep a clean sheet. Within that context we should have had much better control of the game than we did.”
Asked about the drop in the second half, he added: “I’m not trying to make a point, it’s just what I saw. I thought we were really wasteful with the ball in the second half. We took some liberties with taking extra touches. I’ve been around long enough to know if you try to take liberties, you’ll get dragged down pretty quickly.
“I’m not going to let the fact that we’ve won the game disguise the opportunity there for us to improve. In the second half, with the ball we weren’t anywhere near the levels we’ve already shown this year and there was no real reason for it. It wasn’t as if the opposition did anything different. It was more self-inflicted.
“My role in that was to give feedback to the players. That’s what they want. They want to get better, they want to improve. I’ve got some stuff there to show them.”
Creating some good chances on goal in the first half with some excellent football, the Lilywhites were also guilty of overplaying at times and almost trying to walk the ball in when they could have simplified it by taking the opportunity earlier.
Postecoglou really gave his defensive players a rocket not long after the break after Fulham had found themselves getting into some good positions as they looked to restore parity.
There was also a moment in the 71st minute where he was not impressed at all after Richarlison had failed to control a long ball from Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg. Deciding to take a touch with his shoulder rather than simply bring it down, the attacker, who was excellent in the game, in the end lost possession to Timothy Castagne and it left Postecoglou with his hands in the air and Maddison holding his hand up towards the bench in an apologetic manner before giving the Brazilian a pat on the shoulder in encouragement.
Postecoglou will no doubt have also been unhappy with Tottenham passing up an opportunity to make it three following another error from Fulham at the back. Maddison had robbed Calvin Bassey of the ball following a loose touch but Son stepped in his way and put the attacking midfielder off as a result as he saw his effort blocked by Tim Ream.
While the Tottenham head coach did see positives in their performance, most notably their pressing that he hailed as “outstanding” across the whole game, he saw plenty that his team can improve on. Making it clear a number of times already that this is just the start and his side have a long way to go, Postecoglou knows that there is still a lot of work to be done on the training pitch if they are to get to the level he wants them to reach.
In order to do that, he will not let the players get ahead of themselves one bit and ensure that the levels don’t drop or they start taking liberties when leading in games as that could ultimately backfire on them. Top of the Premier League table and with the team still having improvements to make and potentially getting even better along the way, Tottenham are only going in one direction under Postecoglou.
