Fans wowed by Ange’s chilling response to debut loss

Ange Postecoglou has received praise despite losing his first match in charge of Tottenham, with fans and pundits encouraged by Spurs’ style of play.

Postecoglou’s first match as Spurs manager came on Australian soil as a pre-season clash against Premier League rivals West Ham United ended in a 3-2 defeat at Perth’s Optus Stadium.

West Ham raced out to an early 2-0 lead after goals to Danny Ings (18′) and Divin Mubama (23′), before Spurs levelled through Giovani Lo Celso (68′) and Destiny Udogie (71′). Gianluca Scamacca scored the winner for the Hammers in the 78th minute.

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Despite the loss, Spurs fans were given an insight into the elite mentality that made Postecoglou a trophy-winning machine in Scotland in a post-game interview where the interviewer attempted to downplay the loss.

“Results always matter, mate,” a stone-faced Postecoglou said.

“From our perspective, we want to be a team that plays good football and dominates games, but we obviously want to win.”

While being disappointed with the result, the Aussie manager also mentioned “a lot of positives” he saw from his team.

“The first thing for me is to see the players willing to try and implement some of the things we’ve been working on,” he said.

“Their endeavour is to try and play the football we’ve been wanting to play, particularly with our pressing.

“Obviously there’s areas that we’re still working on and it’s fairly glaring with the goals we conceded. That’s on me, we haven’t really organised ourselves and structured ourselves, but that’s something to work on.

“They’re (the players) obviously disappointed with the outcome, but with the football they’ll at least be getting encouragement that if we continue the way we’re doing, the rewards will come.”

It was obvious that Postecoglou has complete buy-in from his players judging from the post-match comments.

“The new gaffer is really good. I’m ready to work for him,” Udogie said.

“Yeah he doesn’t speak a lot but you can see he knows football. He doesn’t need to speak too much, it’s good.

“I like his idea of football. He wants to play football with the ball, wants to have the ball. It’s not like I defend and I counter-attack. I want to have the ball.”

“We worked on this stuff and we’ve started to implement what the gaffer wants,” summer signing Manor Solomon added.

“We’re trying to play an attractive game and to have a lot of patterns and you see all the players involved in the offensive game.

“We absolutely dominated the whole match, along with creating so many chances, the future is very bright for us.”

Spurs had become known for their pragmatic style of play in recent years, especially under Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, and Postecoglou’s more free-flowing football received glowing reviews from the press as well as general observers.

“The gasps were audible when, in the 37th minute, Tottenham’s new goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario played a risky pass to Yves Bissouma, under pressure from a couple of West Ham players and facing his own goal. Bissouma cleverly evaded the press and found a team-mate with his first-time pass,” The Athletic’s Charlie Eccleshare wrote.

“Spurs then raced up the other end and the move ended with a good effort from the the impressive Solomon, which was saved. It was a piece of play straight out of the Postecoglou playbook and he expressed his pleasure with some of Spurs’ attacks after the game.

“It also seemed to liberate the Tottenham players and convince them that this was the way to play. From there, they created four decent chances before half-time, some of which came after extremely slick interplay.”

“One glance at this Tottenham team was enough to confirm a clean break from the risk-averse Antonio Conte era,” The Times’ James Gheerbrant wrote.

“Overall, this felt like an embryonic but promising attacking display, full of fluency, intricate passing and positional rotation.”

Spurs will round out their pre-season with clashes against Leicester City, Lion City Sailors, Shakhtar Donetsk and Barcelona before opening its Premier League campaign against Brentford.

Stiffer tests lie ahead for Postecoglou and his team, but if the debut is anything to go by, Spurs fans are in for one hell of a ride.

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