Tottenham limped to an uninspiring defeat at St James’ Park on Saturday, falling to a 4-0 loss against Newcastle United and slipping out of the Premier League top four as a result. Speaking post-match, Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou admitted that his side ‘just didn’t really get a grip of the game at all.’
‘Newcastle were good, credit to them, I thought they were really good today,’ he assessed. ‘We just didn’t really get a grip of the game at all. Right from the start it felt like we allowed Newcastle to dictate the way the game was played, we never really wrestled control at any stage. We paid a price for that.’
‘We never really got to grips with the game of football. We let it get away from us. And like I said, we paid a price for it.’
Embed from Getty ImagesTottenham were noticeably outdone in the physical aspect of Saturday’s clash, but Postecoglou reflected that he doesn’t apportion their loss to one aspect of the game in particular. He offered a damning assessment, indicating that ‘I don’t think there was one area that cost us today.’
‘I don’t think there was any part of our game that reached the levels that it needs to for us to be able to play the games on our terms, so whether that’s the physical aspect, the technical, the tactical, all of it, we just never really got to any sort of tempo or intensity that we needed to, to stop a team that’s got momentum right from the start.’
Moving forward though, Postecoglou insisted that ‘there’s no point sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. There’s another game in two weeks. We’ve just got to get ready for that. It’s not the first time it’s happened to us and it won’t be the last. It’s part of our growth. Sometimes that growth is painful. That’s part of it and you’ve just got to embrace it, use it and get ready for the next challenge.’
