Ange Postecoglou found one thing ‘bizarre’ about Spurs vs Liverpool

Ange Postecoglou has clarified that the game plan at Anfield was not to sit back and soak up pressure and has offered a reason why his Spurs players failed to express themselves on the pitch against Liverpool.

Spurs delivered their poorest performance of the season

There is a lot of competition for the title of Tottenham’s poorest display of the season, but given the magnitude of Thursday’s game and what was at stake for the Lilywhites, their lacklustre showing raised a lot of alarm bells.

Some pundits have even suggested that it was as bad a showing as they have ever seen from a Spurs side after Postecoglou‘s men failed to register a single shot on target.

Postecoglou has now clarified that the team were certainly not set up to defend with men behind the ball and offered an interesting explanation on why his players did not take the game by the scruff of the neck.

Ange Postecoglou on why Spurs sat back

The Spurs head coach suggested that the fatigue that the Tottenham players were feeling might have been the reason they were content to play on the back foot.

However, he explained that paradoxically, it meant that they ended up doing more running than they would have if they had stuck to their game plan.

When asked why the players decided to sit back at Anfield, Postecoglou told Football.London: “One [possibility] is just that mindset to go out there and play without fear and take on the challenge, rather than go out there and try to survive.

“At the same time, we’re asking a lot of this group of players continually backing up and there’s a physical and mental toll that takes. My job is to eliminate that from their thought process.

“The bizarre thing is we ended up doing more running last night than the opposition so it’s not like by playing that way you conserve energy but sometimes in your mind you think if we go and play aggressively, and press and play at a high tempo we won’t be able to last.

“We’ve outrun the opposition but that’s because we were chasing the ball most of the night and were so passive in our approach.

“It’s about trying to educate the players that even when we are asking a lot of them from a physical perspective it’s much more efficient to take on the opposition than to try and survive or save what energies you have for important moments.”

1-0 lead may have impacted Spurs mindset – Ange Postecoglou

The 59-year-old also suggested that going into the second leg with a 1-0 lead might have resulted in the players psychologically slipping onto the back foot to defend their advantage.

He insisted that his players will learn from their experience on Merseyside, remarking that a defeat could have been easier to stomach if they had gone toe-to-toe with Arne Slot’s men.

When asked if the low energy levels were the main reason they defended deep against Liverpool, Postecoglou said: “Some of it is, it’s a combination of those things.

“It doesn’t help when we’re constantly changing. It’s easy for me to sit here and say we did this and didn’t do that but then you’re self-reflective, thinking what information I gave the players before the game and how did I prepare them for what was ahead.

“Maybe there were underlying messages they got about being 1-0 up and we’ve got to limit Liverpool and be strong defensively because they’re such a good side, but that just feeds into the game they want to play.

“That wasn’t the way I framed it but you’re asking why players took the message out there that somehow us holding out Liverpool was going to be the way to do it last night? That’s certainly not the way I thought we would have the chance of success.

“We could have gone out there and pressed them and still lost the game, that’s a very real possibility because they’re a very good side and in a good moment. But at least if we did that we could say we’d try to do what we were good at and it didn’t work, and we can learn from that.

“I don’t think there’s a lot we can learn from last night in terms of our football. I think there’s a lot we can learn about how we handle the situation.”

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