Ange Postcoglou spoke to journalists after 2-1 of Tottenham at home in Nottingham Forest Monday evening in the Premier League and we have the full transcription with all that the boss of the Spurs said.
The visitors scored only five minutes from the match when Pedro Porro led a forest corner through the Spurs box and fell for Elliot Anderson to hit a powerful shot that diverted Rodrigo Bentancur and Guglielmo Vicario could not prevent him from crossing the line. Chris Wood then had an effort excluded by Var for offside, but went on the match sheet at 17 minutes when he took advantage of the Slack marking to head towards the crossing of Anthony Elaga in front of the beating vicario.
The Spurs produced a shot after the shot while the match was approaching with the goalkeeper of the Matz Salt forest by making a series of backups, but it was only the 87th minute when Richarlison finally took one of his chances with a porro’s cross head, his fourth goal in his last five appearances in the Premier League.
In all, the house succeeded 22 shots at the four of Forest, while visitors had only four keys in the Spurs box, but the northern London team could not find another goal.
Our Spurs correspondent Alasdair Gold was one of those who asked the questions to Postoglou after the match. Here is the full transcription of the Australian press conference at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
You had 22 shots for the four of Forest, how do you explain this score?
This is another game that we lost where we should not lose and it was a large part of our season in that we make things really difficult for ourselves in key moments, just a little concentration. Give bad goals. It’s a shame because our football was exceptional and we completely dominated the game. Even with the two goals we conceded, I always have the impression that we deserve to win the match. At the same time, it is another loss and another unacceptable loss. For us, it was a season where sometimes, even with the challenges we had and we had challenges today to make changes to the team, but it is really frustrating because our football was so good. We have lost another match.
It is18 Defeats in the Premier League now, what can you say to the fans?
I don’t need to say anything at fans. Fans are disappointed and angry as us too. It is too many losses as I know. I have nothing to say to the fans. Fans would not clearly be satisfied with our results, but not the players either. From our point of view, it is something that we must accept the responsibility that we are below the standards that we must have. The back of the medal is that the frustrating song is that it is not because of how we play because our football today was very similar to the home of Frankfurt at home which was another match that we should have won.
Removing Romero and Van de Ven at half-time, was he pre-plane?
Yeah, it was pre-plainified.
Another goal for Richarlison was at least one positive?
It was part of the exercise today to do it, he and Wilson, Kulusvski, Kevin danso a little match time because they missed a lot of football. Richy barely played all year round, Deki did a few months, like Wilson and Kevin. From this point of view, it was good that they all succeeded and had a few significant minutes. We could rest some others that were also useful to us. From this point of view, it was positive.
Do you think that trying to avoid the worst point of the club, maybe the motivation of the Premier League players or is it all about the Europa League?
I don’t know what it means. I don’t think you saw a team that was not motivated. It is not as if we lose because the players threw it. If that’s what people have seen, they look at something different for me. I don’t think they lacked motivation today because I thought our football was exceptional.
But again, we paid the price for lacking concentration and concentration in key moments and it is another game that we let slide. So I don’t think motivation is a problem.
Does this come from a lack of leadership or experience?
It shouldn’t be because it happened to us several times this year. We should have learned from these things, but it is a constant in our makeup right now and this is something that we have to eradicate. At different times this year, we have shown a very good concentration and good concentration, Frankfurt by being a classic case of this.
But tonight, just at first, we didn’t really feel the only threat that Forest was going to have was the counterattack, which we managed very well in the second half, and pieces. We left in two bad goals.
It’s two weekends with vicario errors, do you have concerns about his confidence?
No, no. No, I don’t do it, it is fine.
How is Udogy fate, we could see it with the team, and James Maddison, after Thursday?
Yeah, they are fine. Fate was good. We just left him out of the team tonight. He made a large physical quarter on Thursday and the idea has always been to rest. I was not going to put it, so it was useless to put it on the bench. Madders was quite sore yesterday, but in the past 24 hours, he recovered and was eager to be on the bench. They both are fine.
What was thought with Romero and Van de Ven?
I thought they needed to play for a few minutes tonight because it became 10 days before in Liverpool. With both, we have them in a very good place physically now and I just want to run them. I thought it was not necessary to play more than 45 minutes today and we had to get a few other hours of play. I just felt that if it was Sunday, we would probably not have played them, but a Monday, especially for Micky because he only played one game per week, we have to build it because he is in a very good place right now, so I thought that 45 minutes for the two would be beneficial.
